There have been flash flood warnings for Southeast Louisiana this week. And while areas around town flood, the city of New Orleans is poised to pass a new zoning ordinance that will help with some of that water. But not all of it.
Between 2-4 inches of rain are expected to fall over the next few days, and that makes it hard to do some basic things. Like get in your car.
"There are just puddles of water that are sometimes a couple of feet deep, all over the place," says Dana Nunez Brown, president of Dana Brown and Associates Landscape Architects. Brown says the city's new Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance will make a big difference in what private business owners need to do to manage water on site: hold the first 1.25 inches of rainfall. But the CZO requirements leave out a big chunk of the city — all the public land.
"What about the streets, and other kinds of city facilities? The manuals we have that we’ve been following for years don’t allow, even much less require, water management in the streets. That would be a huge change... to change what the city does when they build something that is public property like a street."
Brown is referring to the The city’s engineering manual. She says she’s talked to the New Orleans Department of Public Works about updating this document, and they’ll get to it — at some point.
