NOLA S&WB turbine knocked offline for 2 hours

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if anything above a tropical depression heads here id bet getting the frick out

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With the loss of 20 megawatt turbine 4 during today's storm, I would guess a lot of people are wondering: What S&WB drainage pumps get powered by 25 cycle power. We're going to look at the east bank west of the Industrial Canal. That's because all pumps in New Orleans East and all but two smaller pumps and two diesel pumps on the west bank run on Entergy power. Also, that's where the flooding reports were concentrated today.

For reference drainage basins for each station can be found at the link in the comments.

DPS 1 25 cycle: Pumps A, B, C, D, E, V1, V2, totalling 4550 cubic feet per second (cfs)

DPS 1 60 cycle: Pumps F, G totalling (2415 cfs)

DPS 2 25 cycle: Pumps A, B, C, D (totalling 3100 cfs)

DPS 2 60 cycle: None

DPS 3 25 cycle: Pumps A, B, C, D, E (totaling 4100 cfs)

DPS 3 60 cycle: None

DPS 4 25 cycle: Pumps C, D, E (totaling 3000 cfs)

DPS 4 60 cycle: Pumps 1, 2 (totaling 640 cfs)

DPS 5 25 cycle: Pumps A, B (totaling 1100 cfs)

DPS 5 60 cycle: Pumps 1, 2 (totaling 584 cfs)

DPS 6 25 cycle: Pumps A, B, C, D, E, F, G (totaling 6125 cfs)

DPS 6 60 cycle: Pumps H, I, V1, V2, V3, V4 (totaling 3200 cfs)

DPS 7 25 cycle: Pumps A, C (totaling 1550 cfs)

DPS 7 60 cycle: Pump D (totaling 1000 cfs)

DPS 12 25 cycle: Pump D (totaling 1000 cfs)

DPS 12 60 cycle: None

DPS 17 25 cycle: None

DPS 17 60 cycle: Pumps A, D (totaling 210 cfs)

DPS 19 25 cycle: None

DPS 19 60 cycle: Pumps H1, H2, H3, V1, V2 (totaling 3920 cfs)

DPS I-10 25 cycle: None

DPS I-10 60 cycle: Pumps 1, 2, 3 (totaling 750 cfs)

DPS Oleander 25 cycle: None

DPS Oleander 60 cycle: Pumps 1, 2, 3 (totaling 99 cfs)

DPS Pritchard 25 cycle: None

DPS Pritchard 60 cycle: Pumps 1, 2 (totaling 250 cfs)

The 60 cycle pumps are run off of Entergy. I checked the Entergy outage map during the storm today and didn't see any major outages across the city.

The standard way S&WB runs their 25 cycle pumps is to feed one pump in each of stations 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 off of frequency changers, which ultimately get their power from Entergy. Usually, it is pump "C" in those stations. The rest of the 25 cycle power would come from the turbines at the Carrollton Plant.

With the loss of 20 megawatt (MW) turbine 5 in December, they have hopefully been running things in novel configurations. This could mean running more 25 cycle pumps off of frequency changers, which would insulate somewhat against a turbine loss as happened today. But no matter what, the loss of up to 20 MW from turbine 4 tripping out would hurt big time. And it looks like it did, with stations 4, 3, and 12 appearing to take it on the chin based on the flood report map.

It would deepen the amount of water in the areas already flooded, and it would push water outward into areas which didn't have water. Then, overall, it would take far longer to drain those areas after power was restored.

Now, I read that Executive Director Ghassan Korban said they didn't know which pumps went out due to the loss of T4. That's arse-covering BS. S&WB collects data on every pump and every turbine every second of every day. It would take literally about ten minutes to check exactly which pumps went down at the same time as the turbine tripped.

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