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 ...
1000gpm pumps are low end of specific gravity pumps.
I suspect larger by a couple orders of magnitude would be nice.
Why, pray tell, should the American People be forced to subsidize a "garmongous civil water pump" industry? Oh... I forgot: "From each according to his abilities. To each according to his needs."
Never mind.
Well I guess these were not like submersible sump pumps. So how do they expect to have any better luck with new motors?
Why did you mention Bush?
I love posts on Saturday night after happy hour. Here take my shop vac too.
Yes.
I'm in a related business that uses pumps. Pumps much, much smaller than the ones in NO are more-or-less custom-made, meaning they are not sitting in a warehouse somewhere.
Possibly existing mining, etc, pumps could be used, and many small pumps can certainly do the work of one big one, at least temporarily.
Remember the oil well fires in Gulf War One? 'Experts' said it would take years to put out, but engineers with financial incentive made it relatively short work.
see post #50, I am not sure those were installed yet, but you get a sense of the capacity.
They dynamited out the flames. Could there be a way to dynamite NOLA water into Pontchartrain?
I helped pump out a pond years ago with a 100 horse tractor and a 500 gal/minute pump. I imagine with the volumes involved here, that would be equivalent to urinating in the ocean in terms of effect. What kind of numbers are required for something like this?
Because the MSM is blaming everything else on Bush, why should this be any different, facts don't matter to them.
For the same reason they blame everthing on him, because he's there!
Bulldoze NO/LA... raise the land and rebuild. Rebuilding without raising the land is folly.
Total nonsense.
You could do the same job with pumps a quarter of the size if you just used four times as many. And so forth. The more pumps they use, the faster it will go.
That or to drink water from time to time.
What about pumps used in canal sluices?
The City Council probably pawned the spare parts to pay for hookers...
Pumps are actually pretty simple devices no matter what size they are. Rebuilding a pump that's gotten wet on the outside is a pretty funny proposition, the same seals that keep the moving fluid from escaping also keep external contaminants from entering. Now switches and power units are a different matter however if you can gain access alternative power to the impellers should be a viable option. Gasoline or diesel power plants would be the most likely options as they could even be rigged to operate partially submerged if absolutely necessary.
Is the bottom of either Pontchartrain or the Mississippi lower than the ground in NOLA. If so, just get a million garden hoses and siphon that sucker out....
I wasn't really wondering what would be nice, I was really wondering what the capacity of the pumps in NO were (that could easily be replaced by mining pumps from somewhere).
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