BATON ROUGE, LA — July 1, 2019 — In anticipation of scattered thunderstorms throughout the next several days, City-Parish Drainage Maintenance crews have been proactively working to address common drainage issues around the parish, including cleaning curbs and gutters around storm drains, clearing drift from cross-drain pipes, and cleaning pipes and catch basins with the large vacuum truck.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 2, crews are prioritizing areas of the parish that experienced standing water from the June 6 wind and rain event. Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome has directed that public works personnel continue actively addressing areas of concern, in order to prevent future flooding from heavy rains and flash flood events.

“We will continue proactively working on storm-drain maintenance, inspection, and repairs,” said Broome. “As we plan for large-scale drainage improvement projects in order to make East Baton Rouge more resilient, we also recognize that local street flooding is a great concern to our citizens. While our crews continue to prioritize this work around the parish, I encourage citizens to keep drains near their homes and businesses free from leaves and trash, as these are contributors to backups during heavy rains like we’ve been experiencing lately.”

The City-Parish expends $8 million annually on storm-drain maintenance, inspections, and repairs.