JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — Orleans Parish residents weren't the only ones that experienced flooding over the weekend. Parts of the Old Metairie area did as well.
Lindsey Caruso lives on Maple Ridge Drive off of Airline Hwy. She was forced to drive her husband's truck to take her daughter to dance class on Saturday morning.
Caruso said the truck has sensors about two feet off the ground that indicate when you're running over something. They went off as she drove in the flood water.
“Water wasn’t going anywhere. It rose, and then it didn’t go anywhere after that." Caruso said.
Jefferson Parish Drainage Director Ben Lepine and Councilwoman Jennifer Van Vrancken surveyed the area over the weekend.
Lepine said Jefferson Parish received four to six inches of rain and that the parish's pumps were all operational.
“We were good to go, and as of right now, I haven’t heard of any structural flooding," Lepine said Monday afternoon.
While most of Old Metairie drains into the Pontiff Playground, Caruso's neighborhood is serviced by the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board's pump station six.
"Because the elevation in the 17th Street canal was significant because power had been lost at station six to several of the pumps there that run on the old cycle of electricity. So, because there was reduced pumping at station six, there was more water in the canal and more water on the streets of the Old Metairie area," Van Vrancken said.
Caruso said it took several hours for the water to recede.
“I would love for Jefferson Parish to come up with a solution to where we are dependent on Jefferson Parish and not Orleans," Caruso said.
Van Vracken said the area has low elevation, which doesn't help the situation.
“We have explored a number of ways to try to address the problem. To try to maybe have Jefferson address it separately. All of those potential solutions are multiple millions of dollars and none of those paths have proved ones that we really can pursue. The quickest, most reasonable one at this time is New Orleans and Entergy working to build that new energy substation that will feed power to stations like six," Van Vrancken said.
Van Vancken said that's expected to be complete in 2025.
“Turbines were down in Orleans, but yet Jefferson Parish suffers," Caruso said.
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