You may have caught lots of beads, danced in the street and dressed in costume, but now Mardi Gras is over.  For the employees at Public Works of Lafayette Consolidated Government as soon as your fun ended yesterday, their work began.

Public Works Director Tom Carroll tells KPEL that crews began cleaning away all the broken beads, discarded cups and trash left by revelers as soon as the Independent parade rolled to a stop at Cajun Field.

Supervisor Jeff Olivier says his trash clean up crews worked late into the night and also into the early morning hours on this Ash Wednesday to clear away all the Mardi Gras debris left by those attending the parade.

He tells KPEL, his crew finished up around 5 a.m. this morning, have taken a break for a rest and will be back out again tomorrow for another round of clean up.

The clean up doesn't just happen in a few hours though.  Carroll tells KPEL,

 "They did all the trash pick up right after the last parade, but the rest of the work will take a while.  It's gonna happen over the next few days, and actually today if you pass on Johnston Street you'll see our crews are dismantling the viewing stands that they had.  They are doing that today and then over the next two days probably through Friday we will be picking up the 55-hundred barricades. As a matter of fact I went down Johnston Street this morning, and I am very proud of the crews and the work they have down cleaning up.  And you know the barricades.... that a big process, it's quite an effort."

Carroll says it will take through the end of the week to get all of the barricades removed from the parade route, but they are no longer in the roadway.  He says it is amazing every year how hard the crews work to put the city back together again after so many people crowd the streets to take part in Mardi Gras.

More From News Talk 96.5 KPEL