Replacement Pumps Don't Exist

Los Angeles Times ^ | September 3, 2005 | Peter Pae

[Nov3]

Read the PDFs linked in the first 250 posts on the pumping system. Some of the pumps are half that alone. Now I really don't have time to argue it anymore. We learned about the pumps in school. They are an engineering marvel and have been copied around the world.

They need to blast the low levee like they are talking about get the motors above water and put them back in service. After that it will take weeks. They needed the huge pumps for a reason.

[Nov3]

P.s The 1890 plan has the drainage system having a capacity of over 8,000,000 gallons per minute. I don't know what it eventually grew to.

[skinkinthegrass]

to build I-93 100 feet below Boston Harbor. Like to see their evacuation plan!

hehe...Who's driving the Green Oldsmobile/Riverboat ? ...Are flippers, face mask and snorkel..airtanks..rabbits' foot....required? :D

[elli1]

Actually the Netherlands got their pumps from NO!

Sure enough. Screw pump invented by A. Baldwin Wood (native New Orlean) used in NO and the ZuiderZee Works among other places.

More Info

ZuiderZee Works

[skinkinthegrass]

Thanks All...Good, lively discussion on FR today on (Advancing) Pump Technology and Applied Hydrology. :)

[Tennessee_Bob]

From post 50, two of the new pumps being installed (as of November of 2003) were going to be pushing right at 17,954 gallons per second. That's going by a cubic foot of water being 7.481 gallons, times 2,400 cubic feet per second (CFM per the website cited in post 50).

[Cvengr]

I saw an interview on MSNBC of Jesse Jackson being lobbed questions which asked how much more the Bush Administration was at fault in the rescue operations.

Jesse Jackson lambasted the Administration because Chavez had offered 20 tons of water which was turned down.

Let's run the numbers to see what was turned down..

20 ton x 2000lb/ton = 40,000 lbs water
40,000 lb / 8.345lbs/gal = 4742 gallons
One tractor trailer tanker truck hauls about 7500 gallons.
A KC-135 can haul about 7500 gal max of fuel
40,000 lb / 62lb/cuft = 645 cuft
645 cuft/ 4'x4'x4' = about 10 pallets

A small water truck used in washing down roads is about a 5000 gallon truck.

How much water is needed? , one might ask.
Logisitcs planners in the military routinely estimate 5 gal/man/day for all uses. Dehydration requirements would call for water rationing and pushing about 1 gal/man/day without showers or sanitation.
So let's say most refugees had been evacuated, 50,000 left, and another 50,000 emergency workers = about 100,000 gal to 500,000 gal water/day.

A 5000 gal gift is nice, but the logistics for the dedicated shipment could also be used to ship medicines and vital supplies better requiring the trucks/shipping vehicles. If 100k-500k gal of water are needed a day, its far better to use a logistics shipping mechanism to transport 100s of thousands if not millions of gallons per day to the area. (i.e. pipelines)

So we turned down 10 pallets of palletized water (1% of 1day requirement) destined for a major port city associated with the American oil and gas industry, from a country whose leader brags about its bioweapons labs and how they intend to kill Americans with bioweaponry and raise the price of gasoline to $10/gallon by the end of the year.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. I wonder if Jesse Jackson was in league with international socialists, trying to start an epidemic to blame on Bush.

[timestax]

bttt

[QwertyKPH]

It's quite the intellectual exercise calculating the volume of water to be pumped. Yet I don't know how you can possibly get accurate figures. There are two factors you are not considering and I don't know how you can even source them:

1) Elevation is variant. No single elevation applies to the entire area of New Orleans. See map:

2) The contents of New Orleans is unknown. More specifically, how much volume do the contents occupy and thereby displace water? There are buildings, monuments, vehicles, etc. etc. that all displace X volume of liquid.

3) The most complicated variable is submerged portion of contents that displace water. How do you determine what amount of any given object is below or above the water line?

So you can see why I am skeptical of any estimates of how long to dry out New Orleans. Plus no one has factored in percolation and evaporation rates. I can only pray that the repaired and new pumps perform well and at their designed capabilities. When they finish, well, they finish. God willing, it will be faster than anyone's prediction.