Report Faults Years of Neglect in New Orleans’ 2017 Floods

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Outside consultants fault New Orleans officials’ long-term neglect of the city’s failing drainage system for widespread flooding last summer.

Through a public records request, The New Orleans Advocate obtained the ABS Group report, a year and a day after a storm caused flooding.

The report was commissioned as a “root cause analysis” by then-Mayor Mitch Landrieu and confirms that the flooding was caused by several factors, including failed drainage pumps, broken turbines, clogged catch basins and undersized pipes.

But the report takes a step back to highlight a years-long failure in managing the system, including a lack of awareness of the system’s state.

The system has since undergone $82 million in upgrades, but the report says that isn’t enough to handle a major storm that has a 10 percent chance of occurring in a given year.