This multi-million dollar pumping station is at the end of a canal where it meets Lake Pontchartrain and is the pumping station that should drain my neighborhood. A beautiful piece of engineering. Its purpose is to pump water from the canal into the Lake. There are about 14 of these in Jefferson Parish. Had these pumps been turned on during Hurricane Katrina our homes would not have flooded. The Parish President chose not to turn them on.
He sent the pump operators 75 miles across the Lake "out of harm's way." They could not return for almost 24 hours after the hurricane because roads were impassable with downed trees and power poles. Therefore, the Gulf of Mexico came into Lake Pontchartrain with the force of the hurricane, the waters came into the canals and the canals came into our houses. Millions of dollars of damage and lives ruined because of one man's decision.
Poor planning and poorer judgment.
P. S. October 2007-this man was re-elected to office by the west bank of the Parish that did not flood in Katrina because Lake Pontchartrain is on the East Bank. On the east bank he lost miserably but not enough to defeat him. For the record, his name is Aaron Broussard.