Environment
The Case for the Flood-Proof Lawn
New Orleans’ water infrastructure needs a lot of work. In the meantime, some residents are taking a new street-level approach to dealing with a deluge.
For years, the sound of rain on the roof of their New Orleans home filled Becky Lloyd and Christopher Renz with dread. Sometimes they’d need to get up in the middle of the night to move their car to higher ground. After a heavy rain, they would lay planks of wood to bridge the eight or nine inches of water that would appear between their driveway and their front door.
“I wouldn’t be able to park or walk to the house without being in water,” Lloyd recalls.