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'Old and fragile' - Orleans' drainage precarious for expected busy hurricane season

The Sewerage and Water Board gave council members a progress report, as they work to repair crucial drainage equipment. WWL's Amelia Strahan with details.

NEW ORLEANS — With a tropical disturbance moving across Florida, hurricane preparedness was top of mind at City Hall on Thursday.

Hearing that the city’s drainage system is fragile isn’t the news you want to get during hurricane season.

“We are feeling good at this point, but I do want to reiterate it is old and has fragile components,” Sewerage and Water Board Superintendent, Steve Nelson said.

That’s exactly what Sewerage and Water Board officials told the New Orleans City Council on Thursday.

“I do feel it’s worth mentioning that even with Turbine 4 online it is a 120-year-old piece of equipment,” Nelson said.

Turbine four, which has been out of service since February, still isn’t up and running, but Nelson says parts to fix the turbine should be installed in the next two weeks.

One of the system’s five backup generators is also offline, and those repairs are expected to take at least two to three weeks.

“This will give us the redundancy that we will need to power all of our pumps and give us more of a comfort level this year,” Nelson said.

Ninety-one of the city’s ninety-nine drainage pumps are operational, but officials say their focus is on New Orleans East, where five drainage pumps over four pump stations are out. Officials aren’t sure when those repairs will be completed.

“We’re working to get those pumps back on just as soon as humanly possible,” Nelson said.

Is the Sewerage and Water Board prepared for a hurricane? Nelson says that depends on the storm.

“As far as rain goes, the system, whether we have all the pumps in all the power that we need, which right now we have forty-nine megawatts. So we can run all of our assets. If we take more than one inch of rain in the first hour and half an inch in every hour thereafter it doesn’t matter all the catch basins can be clean, all the catch basins can be running, we can have all the power, but if it rains too fast we’ll still get water on the streets.” Nelson said.

According to Nelson, the Sewerage and Water Board has rented six pumps and three generators for deployment as needed.

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