Street flooding has subsided in the city of New Orleans just hours after the city was pounded by heavy rains Saturday afternoon and evening. Now, the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board says it’s infrastructure couldn’t handle the intensity of last night’s precipitation.
“Tonight the amount and intensity of the rain that fell over the course of 2 to 3 hours was upwards of 4 to 5 inches with the highest rainfall intensities of 6 inches an hours in the Treme area,” Sewerage and Water Board officials said in a statement to WWL-TV. “This surpasses our capability to handle 1 inch of rain per hour for the first hour and half an inch of rain every hour after.”
That statement comes after video on social media showed streets in multiple sections of the city were made impassible by floodwaters. Some of the videos showed local businesses, including a restaurant, taking on water amid the deluge.
The SWB’s statement also came hours after the agency took one of its turbines that powers the pumps offline because of a mechanical issue. That turbine, Turbine 4, also went offline during December’s flood event.