Haven't linked to nola.com in a long while**, and I'm not about to start now...

...but I do get a subscription to the dead-tree edition of the Times-Picayune, and I saw this in there:

The accident sustained by the lady who tripped over the plywood Entergy left over a hole they were working on was in 2003 - and in, her case, the emergency sawhorses and caution tape supposedly surrounding the excavated spot on the sidewalk in the Quarter were gone - but here's Entergy, eight years later, and the way they deal with the messes they make hasn't changed much:

Attorneys for Entergy New Orleans countered that both were present on the site, as well as a pole and a flashing warning light. The work was left idle for a week after crews dug out and refilled the hole*, and the utility maintained that the equipment was moved by someone else. 

While the court agreed that the equipment had been moved, it described Entergy's procedure of a 14-day delay to repair or restore an excavation regardless of where it is located, "and no preference or priority given to areas heavily traveled by pedestrians, as "unreasonable."*

...Entergy New Orleans was found liable for the fall because Entergy crews went to the site three days in a row, and Entergy "gave no reason why" the excavation could not have between fully restored and cemented the next day*, according to the ruling, issued Jan. 3. The work was completed the day after (Laura) Garner fell, when it was reported to the utility, (David) Oestreicher (II) said.

So there we have it.  Entergy gives themselves a nifty 14-day window to deal with stuff such as this.  It's been, oh, ten days since they last dug up our sidewalk.  Let's see what it looks like today:

Well, they did fill it in on Tuesday.  That's something. 4 more days to paving!

As for this one, I think they may be keeping it 'round for longer than two weeks because they must like it. Such a cute little hole, with its safety cones and sawhorses adorning it while it waits patiently for some concrete to fill it up:

No, those beads are not hanging from the cone, but if they keep this thing going 'til parade season, I'm sure the cone will get its share.

I know Entergy will probably do its darnedest to appeal the verdict on their liability for Ms Garner's injuries, because that's so much easier than actually reexamining its policies on street repairs.  Apparently, it's also much more fun to have lawyers fight out this garbage in court than it is to do the work right, and in a more timely fashion, in the first place.

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*boldface emphases mine

** I haven't linked to nola.com since Dambala's true identity was revealed.  I still feel after all this time that the lack of comment moderation (yeah, what comment moderation?) and the encouragement of anonymous commenting tacks such terrible cesspools of bigotry, ignorance and sheer hate onto the good work that many Times-Picayune reporters do, and I don't wish to encourage that in any way.  I salute Billy Sothern for his recent willingness to analyze what makes those toxic comment sections so bad in his new blog, NO Comment, and I hope he keeps donning the hazmat suits so that Advance Publications will take his critiques quite seriously.  I also hope that he doesn't have to keep wading in that filth and hypocrisy over there for too long.