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City-Parish moving through 311 drainage call log following Monday storm

5 years 6 months 5 days ago Wednesday, September 12 2018 Sep 12, 2018 September 12, 2018 6:33 PM September 12, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - The City-Parish says it's been very busy the last couple of days responding to phone calls about drainage concerns.

A few neighborhoods reported street flooding this week following Monday's rain event. The parish received dozens of concerning phone calls and have been addressing them one by one. One of those calls came from Mike Buchart in Sherwood Forest.

"We had this four and a quarter inch deluge the other day and water came up high," he said.

The water left lines of debris in the front yards of neighborhoods like Sherwood Forest and Sherwood Manor. Some of that water, coming up to the front porches of homes. Buchart, who has lived in his neighborhood since 1985 says he can count on one hand the number of times he's seen that happen.

"I was praying that they'd find some blockage but I kind of figured they wouldn't," he said.

Wednesday afternoon, a crew and the Vactor 2100 Plus were on Buchart's street checking for blockage in drain pipes underground. The Vactor is a powerful self-feeding pressure washer. It snakes through drains and blows out debris.

"It removes the debris or sediment from the catch basin, but it also washes the lines," said Maintenance Director Kyle Huffstickler.

The City-Parish says it's out every day addressing drainage issues. Dozens of calls came in Monday and Tuesday to the 311 call center over drainage concerns. It's why the crew was on Buchart's street Wednesday, but no issues were found.

"The thing that slowed it down was all the outfalls were at their peak capacity," said Huffstickler. "Therefore, it just took a little longer for the streets to drain."

The City-Parish says it was a lot of rain very fast and the infrastructure in some of the neighborhoods, like Sherwood Forest and Sherwood Manor, might not be built to hold all that water.

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