Posted on 09/03/2005 6:36:23 PM PDT by A. Pole
Efforts to drain New Orleans hit another snag Friday as the Army Corps of Engineers discovered that it could not buy new pumps to replace those damaged by the flooding.
Massive pumps capable of draining the city like those that have been keeping New Orleans dry for decades are no longer made and would have to be specially ordered, a process that would take too long, said Col. Richard Wagenaar, the senior corps official in New Orleans.
Instead, repair crews will have to dry out the existing pumps, which could take up to a week, before repairing them with replacement motors and parts and begin pumping water back into Lake Pontchartrain. The repair job could prolong efforts to drain the city, about 80% of which is submerged.
"These pumps are so big, you can't buy them off the shelf. You have to make them, and we don't have time for that," said Wagenaar, who spent about an hour Friday escorting President Bush around the levee damage at the 17th Street Canal.
The city, much of which is below sea level, relies on a network of 22 pumps to keep water out. Army engineers now believe eight pumps are underwater.
The latest wrinkle illustrated the enormous complexity of draining the city, which for more than 200 years had gradually built up an elaborate system to keep itself dry.
Even with the setback, Wagenaar said, the city could be drained in three to six months, mainly because engineers may finally be able to get to the largest pump station, at the end of the 17th Street Canal, as early as today.
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(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
good find,...I was thinking about 5ft dia, but I was way off.
Spares would probably be underwater too.
Unfortunately, with big powerful things like these pumps, "chewing gum and bailing wire" repairs can end up being worse than useless if they fail in such a way as to cause further damage.
My guess would be that the best approach is probably to replace the pumps' motors with something else, perhaps non-electrical. Hopefully someone somewhere has accurate mechanical drawings of the pumps that would allow an "interface" to be built to allow such operation. Unfortunately, the tolerances in such things can be pretty tight. If stuff isn't perfectly axial, things can go very bad very quickly.
And oh yeah, how will you get the sub back OUT once it has done what it has to do?
Wonder if the bilge pumps for the Big Dig are above Storm Surge level?
They're too exhuasted from moaning and groaning and being offended they're being called refugees. A bucket brigate? It's obvious that too many of them can't do more than sit on their cans and blame everyone else for their inability to think, work and be productive. I'm losing patience with this bunch.
OK, if not the sub, how about an innovative use of a nuclear boring machine,...then you can just drill it out.
Think I read that 3 of the station 6 pumps were 72". One smaller.
Why is it I have this urge to go back and read The Fountainhead again?
Current largest designs from ITT:
"Axially splitcase pumps, again, horizontally or vertically mounted, range up to 72" discharge with capacities to 110,000 GPM."
http://www.ittacpump.com/cat_AC_Municipal_Pumps.html
The NO pumps are several times larger than these!
After that call the pipeline people and pumper fire trucks. A little outside the box thinking is needed here.
Sounds to me like the newer Station 6 pumps.
How many "parts" do you think a pump like this has? If they could have afforded a spare pump, they would have incorporated it into another pump house. It's not like stocking an extra light bulb or even a spare car engine - it's like stocking an extra house - make that a mansion.
If that's true (there being few spare parts required), it should have been that much easier to special order spare parts for a future, inevitable, emergency, because only a few parts are really in danger of wearing out or being damaged. I mean, come on - when we talk about spare parts for automobile engines, for instance, we are talking things like spark plugs and timing belts - not engine blocks. No one is talking here about buying entire spare pumps; we are talking spare parts.
Besides, as others have pointed out, it's not the pumps, but the electrical equipment, that is damaged by the water, and the electrical equipment isn't that specialized, old, or rare. Getting replacement parts for the electrical equipment should not have been that hard.
ROFL
Way cool!
And then the water would run right back into the city and you
would have continuous employment. What do your temp pumps weigh?
Can they be broken down and transported overland?
Is the road clear?
Do these pumps run on diesel?
Is diesel available?
Where are the pump hands going to stay?
The photo from early century read 14 or 15 ft.
Electrical equipment that size is usually a custom-build proposition. The question in my mind is whether there's any torque-generating assembly (electric motor, diesel, or whatever) which is available that can be easily adapted to the mountings required by the pumps. Bailing wire and duct tape are not sufficient here--a real quality mounting job is needed to avoid destroying the mechanical parts of the pump (which would have an even longer lead time).
a FEW feet???
20 feet vertical rise is NOT a few feet, and the rate a 3 inch line pumps water at is NOT significant when we are considering over a billion cubic yards of water!
In fact, it might be a million cubic acres at worst volume of water!
To try to raise that much water 20 feet over the levees, that would take 1000 trucks to move that much water in less than 6 months!
No problem with thinking outside the box, but those who have property submerged in the area might not be so patient.
I had thought about just not fighting it, turning it into the American Venice.
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