ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area New Orleans (NO Politics)

I would caution to guess that any electricutions were more due to the hurricane itself, from downed lines. An enevitabilty in any hurricane. The power was out for the later flooding. At the start of one of the closed posts, I asked why they don't shut the power off for the hurricane? They know the lines will go down.

I agree there is going to have to be some quick and dirty temporary wiring done to get started to dry that place out. Has anyone heard why they have not been able to get those pumps running? Can't do much until you get that cesspool pumped! Looks to me like getting some generators on-site and firing them back up would be a step in the right direction.
KB

The reason they aren't pumping it out right now is that the pumps put the water into the lake. The levee on the lake has a huge hole in it. If they don't repair the hole first, the water will just flow right back into the city.

My heart goes out to all those affected by this storm and the flooding. I have a cousin in MS who's house was completely destroyed. I hope the rebuilding can start soon, but I also second the call to only rebuild to Florida building code standards. I have seen some of these houses under construction and it is obvious that a few simple things can make a house much stronger.

Nobody will say it out loud but I doubt the EPA is not going to let them pump that out without an NPDES permit.

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/KATRINA0000.HTM

Some sat photos have sheens of oil the size of city blocks...

A question for y'all

What standard would you set for giving the CO on a New Orleans house when they pump the water out?

I am starting to think they might actually get the water off lots of houses pretty soon. I am hearing about them lining up dredge barges and cranking them up. Those puppies move some water. They use about a 14" pipe and shoot water about 50' when it is half mud. Just pumping water would go faster.

How would you evaluate these electrical systems?

Gfretwell, you raise a VERY good point. I expect there will be a lot of "quick & dirty" "semi-temporary" repairs made just to get things up and running again- to be "done right" over the next few years as things return to normal.

Even if everything is bulldozed to make way for new construction, I am sure that folks will live in, and companies will operate from, all sorts of temporary structures, from tents on up.


New Orleans needs to follow the examples set by Chicago, San Francisco, Florida, and every other place that has had a major disaster- knock it all down, and make new to NEW codes. If that means building only after the area is filled to well above sea level, so be it.

Speaking for SF, and codes born of disaster, most of which are structural, they are more standards than code. What I mean is, for instance, it is a relitive standard, that if you have any exposure to the foundation, you bolt your sill plate, according to code. If you have any structural work, odds are a shear-wall will be involved. Of course any new work, all the above standards and codes would apply. But if you dont have any work done, odds are it doesnt get done, until too late. (Which reminds me, I have shear-walls and bolting to do...)

I imagine NOLA will have some highly scrutinized check list that will follow any natural disaster.

Something like...

• Structural damage
• Bio-hazard
• Toxic hazard
• Parasites

Another one for the bull-dozer... (I Don't mean to making light of it but...) I really don't think much of anything that has been sitting in the water can be saved. Many of those people will return to flat ground after all the inspections happen. There is a lot of stuff in that water. Even then, it will be very cost prohibative for many to return.

I was talking to my buddy who left after the storm again, (Who is going to Nantucket to work for a relitive for a few months) and we bounced a few ideas around... Parts of NOLA sink due to the weight of its own population, literlaly. Fill would only make things worse for stability of the levees. I suggested piers, but that would seem a little silly, a whole town as a board-walk, and a fire hazard beneath, and too expensive. He had lived up here in SF, and just north of here, in Sausilito, they have a whole community that live in house boats that float in a marsh of the bay. They rise and fall in the mud with the tide on concrete foundations. (1/2 of them are converted boats) Then I though, what about a combinmation of both? Floating concrete foundation, set on pin like piers within the corners of the building. Floods come, the house floats up. The water goes down, the house comes to rest in the same relitive place. Have flexible unions that run under the house for water, and electrical, etc. Its either that, or give up fighting mother nature and rename the place Venice, which has been a long-time local joke in the area. I don't know, the more I think about it, reguardless of the now national zeal to re-build the place, maybe its best not to.

With regards to FF Operations, I have to agree with Dave T.
With any Fire pump, you are only allowed to draught clean water.
Draughting salt water after dropping a 6" Suction line into the water would only complicates things, strainer or no strainer.
Putting sand and silt through a pump periphery can cause all sorts of problems.
Get sand into a bearing and see what happens.
There is an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure)here that says we are not allowed to draught sea water under any circumstances.
That is in combination with the corrosion factor.

Is the non-pumping of sea water to protect the fire equipment or to protect the burning structures?

It certainly wouldn't help in NO after the fact, but it would seem to me that suitably designed equipment could pump either sea water or dirty water, and perhaps the ability to do would be a reasonable design choice for equipment in flood prone areas.

On the other hand, doing so would certainly increase the cost of the equipment, possibly more that the probabilistic benefit.

I wonder if one could make some sort of nozzle that would act to aspirate dirty or sea water. You could perhaps double the volume of water pumped without having to move the dirty water through the pumping system. The pump would operate at low volume against high pressure, and at the nozzle you would get mixing to higher volume at lower pressure. Probably much less expensive than a sea water rated pump.

-Jon