Last year, by the end of an extensive storm sewer cleaning, the city of New Orleans had collected 46 tons of Mardi Gras beads that had built up in the collections system over the years.

Officials haven’t forgotten that number. A last-second remedy last year with another Mardi Gras season quickly approaching was the installation of “gutter buddies” — long, narrow sandbags in front of storm drains — along key parade routes to prevent items like beads from entering the system. For this year’s Mardi Gras season, the city is again taking that proactive approach, putting gutter buddies in areas most susceptible to collecting the type of debris that comes with the season’s festivities. Last year’s haul of Mardi Gras beads was pulled out of sewers along a five-block stretch of St. Charles Avenue, a main parade route.

“46 tons of Mardi Gras beads. What we have learned is: Let’s keep that out in the first place,” Ramsey Green, New Orleans’ deputy chief administrative officer, told KLFY Channel 10.

The city spent $20 million doing an emergency cleaning of its collections system last year, an effort that was largely prompted by extensive flooding in August 2017.

Source: KLFY Channel 10