Drainage pumps clear streets but sewage concerns take over

The flooding caused by Hurricane Francine's rainfall took many residents and even local leaders by surprise. Those leaders are now looking into exactly how that went down.

With the massive volume of water that Francine dumped on the region, it took hours for the pumps to catch up, but the area finally drained.

Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng told WWL's Tommy Tucker as much as she wanted to get her own eyes on the reports of flooding, she could not with out risking making a bad situation worse.

"We couldn't get out there. It was just too high," said Sheng. "If we got out there when I wanted to go out there, we would have pushed water into people's homes."

Sheng said the reports of flooding around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. She was finally able to negotiate floodwaters early Thursday morning.

"Councilwoman Arita Bohannon said she knew someone who had a foot of water. I've seen pictures of people who have a couple of inches of water," said Sheng. "The good thing is, the intersection that I knew had a lot of water, by the time I got out there, had receded a lot."

She says some pumps were out of service, but the vast majority of the parish's 194 drainage pumps were working through the storm.

Another related issue, but far nastier, is sewage lift stations being overwhelmed. Flooding in the streets can seep into manholes and put more water into the sewer system than it can handle.

"We know there were sewer backups, we know the sewer system took on a lot of water in the system," said Sheng, so the parishes has activated emergency contracts to get vacuum trucks in to assist.