SWBNO updates city council on boil advisory responses

NEW ORLEANS ( WGNO ) — Officials with the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans answered questions regarding recent boil water advisories at length during a New Orleans City Council meeting on Thursday, Aug. 15.

According to the SWBNO, the meeting contained updates on the employee who was injured while trying to repair the recent power failure that led to a boil advisory for the entire East Bank of New Orleans , as well as information on improvements to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future.

Regarding the Claiborne Pumping Station operator, investigation reportedly shows that “the pressure change within the system caused the clearwell hatch to become airborne, severely injuring the employee.” The worker is still recovering at a hospital.

Ventilation has since been added to the clearwell area as a safety measure to prevent such a pressure buildup in the future.

Standard procedures for precautionary boil water advisory communications are also being updated by the SWBNO, with the aim of sharing initial advisory announcements as soon as potentially hazardous conditions are made known.

SWBNO Director Ghassan Korban says that, after that initial outage, employees were focused on helping the co-worker who had been severely injured while trying to fix the problem.

Korban says the system should be much more resilient when the new power substation is finished in about a year.

“Ultimately, the solution is the power complex, you know, a much more reliable, hardened system that really would not be as susceptible to mylar balloons or a car hitting a power pole. Nonetheless, it is going to be a while. A year is a long time, but things can happen within that year,” said Korban.

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