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.
[...]
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
One of my brothers works for a major pump manufacturer.
Yesterday, he was telling me that the initial business impact was cancellation of orders for the "routine" commercial applications they have in the region.
However, they expect that situation to be only temporary.
There will be a much larger influx of orders AFTER their customers have had an opportunity to evaluate the damage and determine the detailed specifications of what they need to rebuild.
ALL the land area of New Orleans is NOT flooded, so your "200 square mile" number is bogus. Of the land area that IS flooded, we have no idea of the average depth, so your "model" is pretty much useless.
So, where are the 1000 pumps then?
This doesn't surprise me. Time to deport the outsourcing crowd. Maybe we can con China into taking them....
I think they should extract a promise from Bush that it won't rain again until the city is pumped out. - Tom
Check out companies that make them. Lots of them on the web. Add to that current users who might donate temporarily. As I said, in the crisis I saw back in the 1960's, The Corps of Engineers had no problem coming up with 100 pumps of this size virtually overnight.
100 is not 1000
Also to All using this site. Atomic/Nuclear Power plants have and use 500 HP motors and pumps that would be used to quickly
pump water into the generator area for fast cooling, should the reactor begin to heat excessively.. i suspect the N O pumps are about the same size. There is a solution out there if they just do a search. k2afe Florida
Put out the call in Texas and Oklahoma for mud pumps (used to pump drilling "mud" when drilling deep holes intended to be oil wells). Of course, with the price of oil what it is, most of them are probably back in use. A big 'ol mud pump will suck and push water just fine, for as long as you want it to, and in very large volume. Of course, they take a lot of diesel to run, and a seriously big truck to move, but they'd be a huge help.
Just where do suppose these pumps are, at Wal-Mart?
Pumps of these sizes are not made everyday, and to set up molds to make the housings, vanes and implellars to handle a specific amount of water involves a great deal of engineering.
I do hope you being sarcastic, or just joking. To handle that amount of water to pump out may require between 8 to 10 foot diameter pipes to drain NO. No way a two horse power pump will do the job. Lets argue the point.
Bullfrog
Let me guess, the Chinese bought the company?...
I'm sure someone can get something from the oil patch. The pumps we used to have on the pipeline used to move crude oil at 2.2million barrels(42 gallons in a barrel) a day divided by three pumps. So all this hand wringing is for not - there are some very workable solutions out there.
True, but given the time frame over which they produced that 100, it was obvious that they were only drawing on local sources. With the whole USA to draw from, I'm sure they can come up with far more than 1000 very quickly.
In the original crisis (and unlike today), the Corps called for resources from local volunteers--not just from stuff that was "government (Corps) property", and they had the resources in VERY short order.
Well, interestingly enough, New Orleans, LA isn't the only place in the world, or even the US, where there is a requirement for extra large pumps.
But, just imagine how much attention this headline would capture:
That, tadpole, is not how ratings are generated, nor is it how public opinion is whipped into a frenzy, nor how discontent and division among the masses are fomented; yet these are the purposes of the Mass Media, being, as it is, the chief tool of the Left for establishing itself in the only nation that's given it a fight for its life.
I am just grateful that my family members made it out of there early. They can't go home but they are safe and in much better circumstances than those poor people you see on the news.
I am truly grateful.
No problem! Hire Monica and a garden hose.
Gee, what's that big sucking sound??
Houston has some of the biggest and best pump and valve manufacturers in the World. If they can pump oil and chemicals, they can pump water. There are probably some sizable water pumps here, as refineries use a lot of water for cooling.
If the replacement pumps aren't as big, use more of them! If the pump is bigger than a flatbed semi can haul, it won't be able to get there anyway.
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