re: NOLA Pumps to get new power source

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So the city's drainage system will be solely at the mercy of the power grid that goes out in most

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Pieces of the whole story of the S&WB's boil water advisory and continuing water pressure problems are starting to trickle out, though there are still serious gaps in the narrative and real questions as to the agency's understanding of its own risks to the city. Tweets from the agency and articles by the Times-Picayune/Advocate and WWL-TV indicate that one of the two water towers (each has 20 minutes of capacity to maintain pressure) was empty at the time of the Entergy power outage. Responses to me on Twitter indicate the earliest reports of low water pressure being pegged to 4 PM. If so, that would mean the Entergy outage would likely have come 20 minutes earlier, at 3:40 PM. Of course, there's some slop in that number. The water tower was empty because it was connected to a pipe on the plant that was being repaired. The SWB actually admitted they expected and measured a citywide pressure drop from the repair. Obviously, they didn't tell anyone about it beforehand. They also said that when the Entergy outage hit, the 20 minute window provided by the single remaining tower was not enough time to get water pressure back up above 20 psi at the location where it dipped below that state requirement: drainage pumping station 1 in Broadmoor. Note that 20 minutes is not "immediately" as SWB tweeted. Given just the small amount of information they deigned to release so far, it is astounding they decided to take such risks without informing the public. They knew that Entergy was messing with electrical lines near their plant, lines which power their water pumps. They also knew they were operating at lower than normal water pressure AND they had only half of their emergency pressure capacity in service. Yet they decided not to run their own $31 million, 100% federally funded turbine generator 6 which provides the same type of power as Entergy. Doing so would have insulated them from any Entergy mishaps, which were inevitable given the chaotic nature of repairs after a tornado. In fact, it's not clear if they even ran T6 before the storm hit at 2 AM, or if they just assumed Entergy power would be just fine as a major storm blew into town with hours of warning from the National Weather Service. Put simply, they never should have been on Entergy power when it went out. As for notifying the public, reports indicate that water pressure was near zero for hours prior to the boil water advisory being called at 8 PM, and despite promises after every one of these, S&WB still showed they can't alert their own customers to health risks in a timely manner. Why they cannot do so is another question still floating out there. And as to the continuing pressure loss, they claim they didn't expect it, and that something must have gone wrong with valve opening process following the repairs. We've heard this before after many water main break repairs, so it's not a surprise. They claim they're on top of it, but again, despite having second-to-second data about water pressure, it wasn't until the media and customers started asking them what was going on that they decided to talk about it. S&WB and Entergy will be in front of the City Council next Tuesday to point fingers at each other.

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We learned today from a state-mandated SWB report about the May 9-12 rainfall - found only on the City Council website - that turbine generator 4 ("T4") has been back in service since May 11th. It adds 18 megawatts of 25 cycle power that were not available for eight months. This is a huge boon for drainage. However, we also learned that the unit tripped within hours of coming online and was down for over two hours in the early hours of May 12th, the same day as the tornado and the later boil water advisory. We don't know how T4 played into the events leading to the boil water advisory on the evening of the 12th, but it would seem from the report that the turbine was available and running. This makes for a second source of power - SWB's own 60 cycle turbine generator 6 being the other - which could have substituted for Entergy power while Entergy repairs were occurring and one of the water towers was out of service, an inherently risky scenario that SWB seems to have done little to mitigate before it caught up with them. That potential source of embarrassment might be why SWB has been quiet about T4 except for in this legally required report. As for the incoming storm, SWB's track record on restarting equipment after a long outage is poor, so be cautious, hope the best, and plan for the worst. The link to the report can be found in the comments.

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Wait, don't all the pumps run on a different frequency than the standard grid?

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So when Entergy Intentionally shuts off the power or loses power during a storm city will flood and more boil water advisories??

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