New Orleans, La. - Two years ago, Louis Vitrano and his neighbors decided to take matters into their own hands on Neron Place, off Carrollton.
Storm drains in their Uptown neighborhood were packed with debris and mud on the inside. Every time it rained, water poured into their homes and flooded their cars.
After repeated calls to the city for help, the neighbors began opening the drains and shoveling the mud out themselves.
"We have five drains on this half of the block that we are going to try and clean," says Vitrano.
The problems on Neron Place led to a series of FOX 8 investigations into the poor conditions of many catch basins around the city. We found the Department of Public Works had a backlog of 600 storm drains that needed to be cleaned or repaired, and only two vacuum trucks to do the job.
People who lived at some of the addresses on the list told FOX 8 they'd been waiting for more than a year for help.
"I've called the city and I've called the council people over the last eight years to come out and fix it, 'cause there's a swimming pool there and it's horrible," says Ana Morgan.
Complaints caught Mayor Landrieu's attention and more money was put into the budget for the Department of Public Works to address more catch basins.
Since FOX 8's original report, changes have been made.
"Right now, we've got three trucks. We've got one with a magnetic arm that picks up the drain covers and it's a lot quicker," says Director of Public Works Mark Jernigan.
Jernigan says the three trucks are now on the streets. "Our goal is to clean about 4200 catch basins this year," says Jernigan.
So far this year, he says 3200 catch basins have been cleaned, so the department is ahead of schedule.
Jernigan couldn't tell us what the department's backlog list looks like now, but he did say anyone who calls 311 should have their drains addressed within a month.
Jernigan says he knows there's still a lot of work that needs to be done but he's confident the Department of Public Works is moving in the right direction.
