The New Orleans City Council utilities committee met Thursday, and heard from officials with the Sewerage & Water Board about last week's outages.
Sewerage & Water Board said their work to turn pumps back on to keep water pressure above minimum safe levels of pressure was delayed by a freak injury to an employee.
Councilmember J.P. Morrell said with two other workers providing first aid while waiting for EMS to arrive, what were other employees doing?
"Once you start having more people show up, and not going to do the other things, that's when the public starts to ask questions," said Morrell. "Once you get beyond two people providing emergency treatment to stablize someone, the rest are gawkers."
Sewerage and Water Board officials said it actually takes multiple workers in multiple locations to get the pumps running again, and it was not as simple as having someone "flipping a switch."
