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 ...
I've thinking about this problem all week.
I think the flooded area is less than 60 sq miles (from guesses based on simulations and satellite photos)
And, the depth varies from 0 to 8 feet at the maximum flood. The water is now down to 0 to 6 feet feet from the pictures I've seen. LP is slowly draining lowering the level.
Therefore I figure 180 sq mile feet of water or 180*640 acre feet.
Pumping station #6, the largest one, can pump 850 cu ft per sec. or about one acre foot per minute. 60 acre feet per hour. If pumping station # 6 alone is all we have it would take about 2000 hours, or 80 days.
3 times pumping station #6 would do it in 27 days.
This range is pretty well in agreement with Corps estimates of 36 to 96 days after full pumping starts.
No, we'll just give the money to Kerry/Kennedy (water experts) to build I-93 100 feet below Boston Harbor. Like to see their evacuation plan!
Aren't we still using those pipelines. Won't they be mad if we take their pumps?
(wrong pump curve anyway)
Good planning you idiot mayor.
Would it not be intelligent to have some backup pumps (and motors to run then) stored on higher ground?
Also would it not be wise to also store spare electric motors and other elec components on higher ground?
You could use the existing pumps and swap out the elec stuff that got shorted out?
Would you not plan for this?
I would if I was in charge of this corrupt city.
The mayor probably diverted the money for his cronies instead.
Sick.
But..but...but what will the governor, mayor, and levee board members think (for weeks) about that???
Seriously, that is an excellent idea and I would bet that something like that has been offered up among ideas but don't expect the locals to move on it. :o(
being solidly leftwing, boston is immune from hurricanes. no creation of W would ever be allowed there.
I agree. Me thinks wet motors and motor controllers are the real problem. I don't understand why the pumps themselves would need replacing?
But when so many lives are at stake you would think an extra pump would have been in storage. (Did they check in the school buses?)
You can bet that the knowledge on how to create such projects went with him. Years worth of experience on what works, what didn't, and how to analyze the process are the property of senior engineers who have been forced out for the past twenty years without passing on that knowledge. There is no text book that tells you how to build a pump as big as a house.
Yet on this forum we read the opinions of complete fools (who no doubt are working careers in marketing and finance) that America is losing none of its manufacturing capabilities or can build anything it wants to at any time.
Or that the water-sensitive parts might be situated on high ground...but hey, I'm obviously not an expert. Clearly if anything could have been done, the experts would have done it. < /dripping sarc>
Not for nothing but they could bus the water out. Now that they have buses. /sarcasm off
Actually the Netherlands got their pumps from NO!
I agree; rebuild a "sewer" of a city, you'll just get a newer sewer.
I think it's time to visit the concept of "busing" on a much larger scale. Busing was meant to improve the chances of inner-city black children of getting a real education, invariably by transporting them to predominantly white schools.
We see what happens on an urban scale when so many congregate in one area: you get a New Orleans or a Detroit. Filthy, incredibly crime-ridden hellholes. What if it was decided no more than 12% of any particular area/city/neighborhood could be of one race to better ensure diversity, etc., EXACTLY like busing was supposed to accomplish?
What if all these people were relocated in smaller groups to communities in Iowa, Vermont, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Idaho, etc.? Would this not accomplish for them what busing was supposed to accomplish for their kids?
Would we have the lowlife, murderous, raping gangs that we now see in NO? Nope.
Just a thought, but one that has been nagging at me for days now. May develop this idea into a thread of its own, but damned if I won't be called "racist" for it.
Wonder you really don't understand the magnitude of the problem. The solution you provide would NEVER empty the city. NEVER. Every time it rained the city would fill back up. They need real pumps.
Prove it. Maybe your assumptions will be better than Bannon's.
A million gallons a minute is my bid.
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