Holden, rivals debate storm

• By SCOTT DYER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 16, 2008 - Page: 1B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Mayor-President Kip Holden’s opponents had a lot of suggestions Monday about how to improve the city-parish’s recent response to Hurricane Gustav.

Metro Councilman Wayne Carter said that every gas station in Baton Rouge should have had a generator in order to cut down on the lengthy gas lines that clogged traffic in the days immediately after the storm. Many stations received fuel, but couldn’t dispense it because they had no power.

“Shame on the oil companies for not having a generator at every station so that everybody could get gas. We had a line at one station that was over 2 miles long,” Carter said.

Carter said he would also make sure that every sewage pump station had a generator. He noted that he spent part of the storm “toting raw sewage out of people’s houses” because the sewer system failed during the blackout.

And Carter said the parish’s drainage canals should have been better maintained in order to avoid the flooding that damaged some homes.

In response, Holden noted that part of his $989 million tax proposal — which Carter opposes — calls for massive improvements to the drainage system.

“You can’t blame the drainage issues on this mayor or this administration, because you have not been pushing for anything involving drainage or anything else,” Holden said.

Another Republican opponent, Dan Kyle, said storm debris pickup efforts should have been accelerated, especially with Hurricane Ike threatening.

“They said the trash was supposed to be picked up by Friday, but I think they forgot to tell us which Friday because as I drove here today, there was still plenty of it out there,” Kyle said.

Kyle noted that in the days following Hurricane Gustav, many major intersections were clogged up because there weren’t police officers available to direct traffic.

If elected, Kyle said he plans to scrub the city-parish budget to find money to hire more police officers not only to fight crime, but to help direct traffic.

Holden noted he has increased the number of police officers on the street over the past four years. He also defended their performance at a time when every traffic light was knocked out by the storm.

“Shame on you, Mr. Kyle, because they (the police) were working their butts off to keep neighborhoods safe and trying to direct traffic at the same time,” Holden said.