New Orleans Flooding Raises Questions About Pump System

NEW ORLEANS, LA — Heavy rain in New Orleans over the weekend overwhelmed the municipal pump stations, flooding parts of the community, and some officials say they're dissatisfied with the city's response.

"Are our city pumps working as they should?" Councilman Jason Williams said, according to local news reports. "If we can't handle a bad storm, then what will we do when there's a hurricane?"

Williams said the council will meet Tuesday to seek answers. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

VIDEO: Weekend rain causes flooding in New Orleans. https://t.co/3cphHBC2F1 #KPRC2 pic.twitter.com/1iMJrKdO22
— KPRC 2 Houston (@KPRC2) August 7, 2017

Some neighborhoods saw between 8 and 10 inches of rain over a few hours Saturday. City officials said that was too much for the Sewerage & Water Board's 24 pump stations to cope with even though all were operating.

Some cars became stuck as water covered their wheels. People slogged through knee-deep and even hip-deep water in some places. There were also reports of businesses and homes sustaining water damage.

Council members questioned whether the city's pumping stations were working correctly.

The Sewerage and Water Board has maintained that they are.

"There is no drainage system in the world that can handle that immediately," the Sewerage & Water Board's Executive Director Cedric Grant said, according to WWL-TV. "I continue to tell the people what this system can do. It's pretty amazing in that it can do one inch of rain in the first hour and a half an inch of rain every hour after that. We are dealing with 8 to 10 inches of rain in three hours. It is not going to be able to pump that in an hour."

Just got to New Orleans where heavy rain is flooding streets, but that's not stopping drivers or this guy on a bike. #nola @Kentuckyweather pic.twitter.com/Ul7ypjvqse
— Jennifer Palumbo (@JenNimePalumbo) August 5, 2017

Some candidates for city offices have already raised the city's flood response as a campaign issue, NOLA.com reported.

Deputy Mayor Ryan Berni told reporters the city has no immediate plans to request an emergency declaration from the state, but that could change as the city collects more information on flood damage.

City homeland security director Aaron Miller says that with more heavy rain predicted for Monday afternoon, the city's pumping capacity could be overwhelmed again.

Photos credit: Michael DeMocker and Brett Duke/NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune via AP; Scott Threlkeld/The Advocate via AP