New Orleans gets aggressive with potholes

The New Orleans Department of Public Works is launching an ambitious street repair program.

"We have to work with urgency to fix these longstanding problems in the city," said New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno.

The mayor said that urgency is n't lost on her executive staff. She said her deputy CAO of infrastructure, Steve Nelson, has already overseen the repair of thousands of potholes that pockmarked city streets.

"He was like, 'all right boss, since you were inaugurated, DPW has filled more than 5,000 potholes,'" Moreno said. "He really believes that if he changes up some staffing and really prioritizes this, that he can scale up to fill 1,500 potholes a week. A week. So that's, what, 6,000 a month?"

The mayor said in a social media post that they're still working to hire the 50 new public works employees to handle this type of work directly, and she'll be signing an executive order in the next few days to try and speed that along.