NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board worked to drain city streets during Saturday’s heavy rains with one hand tied behind its back.
According to the embattled utility, two major turbines that supply power to city drainage pumps were not working as more than five inches of rain fell in about two and a half hours.
That meant there was only about half of the available power needed to run the pumps and drain the streets.
“Once you’re limited on power, you’re limited on the number of pumps you can run,” SWBNO General Superintendent Ron Spooner said.
The century-old turbine 4 went down early Saturday morning.
Turbine 5 was already offline due to mechanical problems.
Spooner says as a result, drainage pumping stations 1, 2, 6, and 7 ran at reduced capacity.
That caused widespread street flooding in the city.
“Once we lost T4, that actually caused pumping in certain parts of the old city drainage area to slow down,” Spooner said.
The lone pump at DPS 12, which drains parts of the Lakeview neighborhood went down altogether for a time as a result of the power problems.
City Councilman Joe Giarrusso says something needs to be done about the well-documented problems at this pumping station.
“DPS 12, which was unmanned in 2017, which has back channeled before, and was out during Hurricane Ida, obviously is going to need some redundancy,” Giarrusso said.
Some New Orleans neighbors complained they did not receive an alert from the city’s NOLA Ready system.
Typically, a text message is sent notifying them it’s okay to park on the neutral ground because of potential flooding.
Homeland Security Director Collin Arnold says the night before the storm it looked like the worst of it was heading toward the Northshore.
By the time the weather system parked over the city with flooding rains, it was too late to send out an alert.
“While we strive to make every incident and get everything right with the weather, it’s the weather,” Arnold said. “There will be times where we may miss something. The weather may throw us a curveball. There may be an infrastructure challenge with power with Sewerage and Water Board.”
As the Sewerage and Water Board works to get T-4 and T-5 back online, the long-term solution to the utility’s power problems is under construction at the main Carrolton water plant.
The new Entergy substation will eventually supply all of the electricity needed to run the pumps. It is expected to be up and running by peak hurricane season in 2025.
“We ask the public for its patience, but we’re definitely heading in the right direction with where we’re going with the west power plant,” Spooner said.
According to Spooner, T-5 could be back online within the next 5 to 10 business days. For now, T4 is out indefinitely.