Fool me once, shame on me Fool me six times in two years....

Well then I guess it might be time to rethink things.

NEW ORLEANS — Citywide flooding events like what happened Monday afternoon are "extreme" and require a "thorough investigation," a Sewerage & Water Board spokesperson said.

As much as 5 inches of rain fell across the metro New Orleans area between about 1:30 p.m. and 4:10 p.m. Monday, creating widespread flooding that affected many parts of New Orleans as cars stalled, gridlock formed, businesses flooded and residents dealt with all-too-familiar frustration.

It's at least the sixth time during the past two years that heavy rains inundated different parts of the city following a seemingly routine summer thunderstorm.

S&WB communications director Richard Rainey said the results of Monday's flooding were "extreme," and that the flood events they've witnessed since the notable Aug. 5, 2017, flood are a phenomenon that need to be investigated. 

Was Monday "extreme"?  What does that even mean anymore?  It wasn't quite as bad as the flood we had last month.  But it wasn't nothing. I happened to be headed uptown on St. Charles when it hit. When I saw that Washington was going to be impassable for a while, I pulled over and parked on the sidewalk.  Like a lot of people, I wasn't going anywhere for a while.  Some of these larger vehicles were a little more confident.





I did get out and walk around a bit. The worst of the rain had already cleared up when I took these photos.  It was brief but it dropped enough water to do this.



It also shut down the streetcar which left packs of bewildered tourists to trudge their way up the neutral ground on foot.. provided they stuck to the high ground.  Also it wasn't long until the canoe people started to show up.  Why are there always canoe people when this happens?



I mean I took that picture from the neutral ground just 20 feet away.  My feet weren't even wet.  You didn't need a canoe to get where you were going.  This was strictly a recreational activity.  There was more than one canoe guy too. There's always more than one.  Here you can see a canoe passing in front of the New Orleans and Company offices. Embossed lettering on their building proudly proclaims it the "Headquarters of New Orleans Tourism."



Speaking of which, just across the street in front of the Avenue Plaza, I overheard someone saying, "Back in Atlanta we don't have this shit." That's right.  #OnlyInNOLA, baby.



But, okay, probably just the fact that we're talking about seeing the canoes every time this happens means something is wrong.  How often should this be happening?  Six major street floods in the space of two years is a lot.  And it's not just the frequency of the flooding that is unusual. It's also the locations.  This stretch of St. Charles is relatively high ground. The river side tends to pool up a little bit from time to time but I can't recall seeing the whole street inundated like that until very recently.  Same goes for this stretch of Carondelet which was flooded Monday.



This one is from the July flood. It's Third and Carondelet. I've lived nearby for almost 20 years and I've never seen it do this.



Something is definitely different. But what?  Here is one theory.

The S&WB is studying the effects of the massive culverts built in recent years under several Uptown avenues as part of the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, known as SELA. A report on the impact SELA has had on drainage in the area could be complete as early as next month, Korban said.

My goodness. Imagine if after all these years, all the money spent, all the neighborhoods and business disrupted by the construction, all the expensive property damage incurred that SELA actually would have ended up making things worse. Delightful!

Anyway, it's not just SELA they're looking at. Korban says they also want to look at the pipes under the CBD. 

To try to figure out what’s wrong, the S&WB plans to investigate the long length of box canals that run from Julia Street up to Drainage Pump Station 2 on North Broad Street, which is responsible for keeping the area dry. Just blocks away from that station, the S&WB is still working to clean a massive pile of debris, that included at least one car, from the canal that carries water away from the station on its way to the lake.

It's strange that it has taken them so long to admit this, But it turns out that even when the pumps are working at (near) full capacity, they can't pump the water out of the city if it's not even draining down to where they are.  So now we're gonna go down in the culverts.  We learned last week that practically anything could be down there. It's probably not going to be pretty.

But we should point out also that there is more than one reason they're looking at those downtown pipes.  They've actually been planning to go down there for some time; prior to this flood, and before even the much discussed extraction of a Mazda 626 from below Jeff Davis Parkway. In the story about that episode, we read about these negotiations. 

Similar inspections of pipes in the Central Business District are being pitched to the Downtown Development District to encourage it to agree to a new, $3 million tax that was negotiated as part of the Cantrell administration's infrastructure funding deal this year with the hospitality industry, Green said. 

It's not just.. or perhaps even primarily... concern about downtown drainage issues that is motivating the inspections. It's the pursuit of political leverage with a taxing authority that, really, shouldn't even exist in the first place. That doesn't mean going down to look at the pipes is a bad idea. It's just that we should be aware of why they're looking at those pipes in particular.

And to be clear, it's not just support for the new tax, the mayor is asking from DDD. She also wants them to roll their millage forward to maximize windfall from the recent property assessments.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration is asking the DDD to increase its millage by $2.5 million and dedicate that money toward drainage and infrastructure issues in the area. The district had planned to roll back its tax rate in 2020 because of higher property assessments; the additional tax would keep the rate about the same for the area.

An effort to actually identify and begin fixing the drainage problems could help convince the district’s board that such a move is needed, Weigle said.

On Monday morning, the very same day the streets flooded,  Together New Orleans presented a report to City Council about the devastating effects the skyrocketing assessments and potential property tax hikes are likely to have on the city's already severely cost-burdened homeowners and renters.  

Together New Orleans estimated that almost 2,000 households will see their taxes go up by more than $1,000 next year. And because of a recent state constitutional amendment that phases in the higher taxes on assessments that increase a property’s value by more than 50%, nearly 5,200 will have a total increase of more than $1,000 in the next four years due to this year's citywide reassessment.

Some neighborhoods will see tax increases that represent more than 4% of the average median income of the residents living there, Together New Orleans said.

“When you add all that together, there’s no way folks can continue to live here even if they make a decent wage,” the Rev. Joe Connelly, a member of the group, told the council.

Councilmembers were apoplectic. But also they seemed to be at a loss for solutions.  At one point, Helena Moreno even wondered out loud if we could just ignore the assessment and decide to collect this year's property taxes assuming the previous values. That's not likely to happen.  But it's also clear that rolling forward isn't going to be a popular option with Councilmembers either.

But City Council isn't the only body who will be making decisions about millage rates. In fact Council actually only controls something like half of them. The others are spread out among several taxing authorities including the Sheriff's office, Audubon, the Convention Center, and, yes, the Downtown Development District where it looks like the mayor, via Sewerage and Water Board has found some leverage.  It almost makes you wonder whether or not LaToya might want to think about shoving a few cars down the storm drain herself just to provide a little extra motivation.