Up to 80 days to drain New Orleans

[cancunkid]

Draining New Orleans could take 80 days- Army

By Jim Loney Fri Sep 2, 5:32 PM ET

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Engineers may need up to 80 days to remove Hurricane Katrina's flood waters from the swamped New Orleans, a senior U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official said on Friday.
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Work crews gained control over one of the breaches in the levee on Friday and expected to have another major gap closed on Saturday, Brig. Gen. Robert Crear told reporters at a briefing in Baton Rouge.

"We're looking at anywhere from 36 to 80 days to being done," Crear said.

The bowl-shaped city is mostly below sea level and ringed by 350 miles of earthen levees designed to hold back floodwaters as well as Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

The levees are configured in 13 rings and Hurricane Katrina gouged major breaches into two of them, allowing the lake water to gush in and submerge 80 percent of the city.

Lake Pontchartrain was still receding on Friday and was expected to drop by another foot.

But when it reaches its normal level, the lake will still be about a foot above sea level. The city sits an average 6 feet below sea level so that will still leave much of New Orleans under 7 feet of water that cannot drain on its own and must be pumped out.

Crear said engineers "affected closure" of the 17th Street canal breach but "we left it open while water is draining out."

He said crews dropped giant 3,000-pound (1,360 kg) sandbags into the hole.

Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said at a
Pentagon brief that it would take several weeks to drain the city but declined to be more specific, citing such variables as the number of pumps to be used, their relative efficiency and electricity availability.

Strock rejected suggestions that the Corps' response to the disaster was hobbled by being stretched too thin as a result of U.S. operations in
Iraq and
Afghanistan.

"We are spending a lot of money and the Corps of Engineers is involved in the reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "But we're able to balance that with our human resources. And it is not directly affecting our budget."

Strock said the Corps had expected the levees that broke to protect the city for 200 to 300 years without failing based on projected storm threats.

"That means that an event that we were protecting from might be exceeded every 200 or 300 years," he said. "So we had an assurance that, 99.5 percent, this would be OK. We, unfortunately, have had that 0.5 percent activity here."

[GalvestonDuck]

(Not directed at you, cancunkid, but the title of the article)

Drain? More like siphon! You can't drain from lower to higher. *shakes head*

Sorry, minor silliness, but I had to say it.

[jburns]

(Not directed at you, cancunkid, but the title of the article)

Drain? More like siphon! You can't drain from lower to higher. *shakes head*

Sorry, minor silliness, but I had to say it.

I don't believe you can siphon from lower to higher either. Got to pump.

[superfly]

Once they get the levees fixed, they can drain the city in a week or so.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

The pumps most likely will not work any more. Why because they where under water.

[Shoshana]

That's some nasty water gonna be sucked outta there. Prob'ly kill all the fish.... you think?

[Windy]

This is good news. 80 days is significantly shorter than earlier ACOE estimates. But then I think those estimates assumed the entire city were to completely submerge.

[GalvestonDuck]

(Not directed at you, cancunkid, but the title of the article)

Drain? More like siphon! You can't drain from lower to higher. *shakes head*

Sorry, minor silliness, but I had to say it.

I don't believe you can siphon from lower to higher either. Got to pump.

Actually, you can if you have capillary action.

[vbhoutex]

The pumps or at least some of the pumps should work once there is power to run them. I don't know for sure what kind of pumps they are, but I would assume some or most all of them are submersible pumps which are designed to lift water to a higher plane and normally do run under water. I know there are also many different types of pumps that can do the same thing, that have motors that are not under water also.

[soonertwister]

The levees are configured in 13 rings and Hurricane Katrina gouged major breaches into two of them, allowing the lake water to gush in and submerge 80 percent of the city.

There are no "13 rings" to the levee system in New Orleans. Loney needs to go back to journalism school, and see if he can increase his comprehension beyond a 3rd grade level.

Embarrassing.

[Cookiely]

I heard that if the pumps went under water which they probably have that it would take many months to build new pumps before they could even start the process of draining the water from New Orleans.

[jburns]

This is good news. 80 days is significantly shorter than earlier ACOE estimates. But then I think those estimates assumed the entire city were to completely submerge.

Actually it's terrible news. To meet that deadline they will have to start pumping direct discharge of the toxic stew into the lake without tests of any sort to make even an educated guess on the effects. Despite the seriousness of the current situation it is by no means the worst thing that could happen to the gulf region. Entire ecosystems will be at risk.

[themusk]

The levees are configured in 13 rings and Hurricane Katrina gouged major breaches into two of them, allowing the lake water to gush in and submerge 80 percent of the city.

There are no "13 rings" to the levee system in New Orleans. Loney needs to go back to journalism school, and see if he can increase his comprehension beyond a 3rd grade level.

Embarrassing.

Maybe he got New Orleans confused with the legend of Atlantis.

Yep, bad journalism.

[wxman57]

Of course, that timeline assumes it's not going to be raining over the next 80 days. Just a weak tropical system could cause more levees to break. I don't think that those levees were made to hold water IN for extended periods of time. 5-10 inches of rain from a tropical depression could put the rest of the city underwater.

[lester]

Once they get the levees fixed, they can drain the city in a week or so.

I hope so

[vbhoutex]

I heard that if the pumps went under water which they probably have that it would take many months to build new pumps before they could even start the process of draining the water from New Orleans.

If that is the case then there was some strange engineering going on. Usually when we are dealing with wet environments the systems we design that are using pumps use pumps that will work underwater. I know nothing about the pumps in NO, but this just doesn't make sense to me.

[LSU2001]

The pumps will work underwater, it is the motors that run the pumps that are shot. As long as the pumps are running flooding is not that big of a problem but once the pumps shut down water finds ways to penetrate the electric motors and you cannot restart them. Another problem is that backup diesel pumps are also flooded and when the diesel motors go under you cannot eaisly get them running again. And the last thing to consider is that all of this water is salt water, the corrosive effects are tremendous and after only a few days metal begins to corrode.
Tim

[cancunkid]

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

3 entries found for drain.
To select an entry, click on it.

Main Entry: 1drain
Pronunciation: 'drAn
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English draynen, from Old English drEahnian -- more at DRY
transitive senses
1 obsolete : FILTER
2 a : to draw off (liquid) gradually or completely <drained all the water out> b : to cause the gradual disappearance of c : to exhaust physically or emotionally
3 a : to make gradually dry <drain a swamp> b : to carry away the surface water of <the river that drains the valley> c : to deplete or empty by or as if by drawing off by degrees or in increments d : to empty by drinking the contents of
4 : DROP 7c, SINK <drained the putt>
intransitive senses
1 a : to flow off gradually b : to disappear gradually : DWINDLE
2 : to become emptied or freed of liquid by its flowing or dropping
3 : to discharge surface or surplus water


Okay it got to bugging me because my local paper used the term drain too. Honestly I think the term drain makes more sense to people than dewater or unwater. Trust me I wasn't in the least offended as a matter of fact I had to laugh when I went back and thought about it like a big bathtub....in the basement can't drain up. But like so many terms it has so many meanings.