BATON ROUGE — Residents and city crews are clearing drains ahead of expected heavy rainfall in the Baton Rouge area.

Tuesday morning, clouds opened, and rain started falling across the city. The preparations come just a month after flooding left businesses under the Perkins Road overpass underwater, and cars stuck in place.

Homeowner Marie Constantin spent the morning removing grass and built-up debris from her storm drain on her street. "This pops up," Constantin said, explaining that keeping the drain clear allows fast-moving water to clear out quickly.

"I just have to make sure that it's clean," she said.

The same conversations were happening at City Hall. Fred Raiford manages teams, spending the day getting the city-parish ready for the worst.

"We'll be out looking at areas that we need to do, any cleaning that needs to be done, any debris off of pipes," Raiford said. "We're trying to accomplish a lot of that now."

Homeowners in the Garden District shared their frustration about last month's flooding.

"I flooded in March and in May," one resident said.

"We have had about three moments where the restaurant has been flooding," a restaurant owner near the Perkins Road overpass said.

WBRZ's Alexis Marigny asked Raiford whether what happened on May 8 could happen again.

"I don't know that," Raiford said. "That really depends on what type of rainfall we have. Over the years, we've had the intensity and duration of our rainfall challenge our drainage systems."

Raiford says his department faces challenges and that updating infrastructure around Baton Rouge depends on forces outside his control. The federal government has announced plans to shrink FEMA, which Raiford says many city-parish projects depend on.

"I'm very disappointed sometimes because on some of our projects we've waited two to three years to get approval on," Raiford said. "And it's something that would be beneficial to reducing flooding for people in many parts of our parish."

Raiford is asking anyone who does not need to leave their house to stay put during the heavy rain to avoid cars potentially flooding.