(KSDK) -- Officials with the Metropolitan Sewer District, MSD, say they received close to 60 calls Friday evening and overnight, as a result of rain from Hurricane Isaac.
MSD Spokesperson Lance LeComb said crews fielded 22 calls for flooded streets, and 30 calls for basement back-ups.
"The majority of the flooded street calls were just too much water coming out of the sky at one time. The system needed time for it to drain away," said LeComb.
That was the case on Chamberlain east of Goodfellow. There, MSD crews had to pop the tops off manhole covers on top of sewer inlets on both sides of the street.
LeComb said, "You have an area here that's being newly developed, so we've got a lot of dirt and other natural materials that tend to sit there. And particularly with the dry weather it's not holding the ground very well. Rain comes along yesterday as you can see here at the edge of the path, the dirt and other stuff just kind of congregates there and washes into the sewer so we came down here and the inlet on the other side."
LeComb went on to say their crews removed the manhole cover, put a vacuum inside and sucked out all the debris so the street could drain normally.
"It's been so far, so good," said LeComb, "but we've got a lot of rain coming in still tonight. And we're going to be prepared for that as well."
LeComb said while MSD scaled back crews Saturday, they remain at the ready to respond to severe weather.
"Looks like about half-way through the window," said LeComb, Saturday afternoon. "The rest of the rain's going to come in later this evening, going into Monday morning. We're still going to be just as prepared. We still haven't backed-off on having crews on stand-by or scheduling anybody. And if
we are hit by several inches of rain in a couple hours, we'll be able to respond in force to make sure we're out there as quickly as possible."
LeComb said MSD had quadrupled the number of people in their call center, due to Hurricane Isaac. Crews are generally able to respond to calls within 4 hours.
KSDK