I have a house in Uptown on a busy street and a year or so ago the manhole in the street in front of the house was missing the manhole cover.
I called the city almost daily and all they could do for two months is put an orange cone in front on the open manhole.
As for the streets that are full of potholes you can see patch after patch after patch that has been done over the last 20 years on many streets. But in all of that time they have not resurfaced any of the streets.
Sometimes on major streets you will see huge potholes that have been there for years or big buckles in the street that have been there as long as I can remember.
The problem is that many people in NOLA do not realize the level of disfunction in the city.
A few months ago I was talking to some well educated NOLA residents about the potholes and they told me that “all major cites have streets like New Orleans.”
I laughed and said, “No” and they got all bent out of shape that I was ragging on New Orleans.
I laughed and said, “No” and they got all bent out of shape that I was ragging on New Orleans.
Oh, other cities get potholes just as bad as those in New Orleans. The difference is, they actually FIX them. In the Dallas area, they actually send crews out in the Spring and Summer to examine streets for new cracks. If they find a crack, the use something that looks like an enormous Dremel tool to grind and widen the crack, then they pump it full of sealer to prevent freeze damage in the coming cold months. Preventive roadway maintenance - I doubt that the idea has ever been discussed in New Orleans.
Did they ever repair that huge pothole / meteor crater on St. Charles avenue, just upriver of the universities on the riverbend-bound side? Seems like it was there for at least two years following Katrina - they just kept dumping clam shells in it.
Some crackhead probably stole the manhole to buy crack!~A year or so ago scrap was high.