NEW ORLEANS — In a series of tweets Sunday, the Sewerage and Water Board acknowledged that New Orleans would have street flooding during Tropical Storm Cristobal, saying that the loss of a power-generating turbine could force them to ration power and operate fewer pumps at a time.
The update from S&WB came hours after city officials gave the thumbs up on being prepared for the storm live on WWL-TV.
At the time, Collin Arnold, Director of New Orleans Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said the S&WB had no power issues in the past 24 hours. There had been about 1.6 inches of rain Saturday into Sunday morning, and the power had remained stable.
The storm is expected to make landfall Sunday afternoon and may bring more than 10 inches of rain in certain areas across Southeast Louisiana into Monday morning.
S&WB tweeted that they remained prepared for the storm, and that their emergency operations center had been activated.
In December, one of the five turbines powering 99 drainage pumps throughout the city exploded. Repair crews were unable to repair it before hurricane season began on June 1.
The turbines are redundant, meaning that they – along with generators known as EMDs – generate more power than needed, so all 99 pumps should continue working unless there is another issue.
But Friday, S&WB sent a statement warning that an EMD would be offline for repairs, further hurting the power system's redundancy.
"The loss of turbine 5 and one EMD has reduced our power redundancy," S&WB tweeted Sunday. "An unforeseen loss of another power source could force us to ration power."
Ghassan Korban, the executive director of the Sewerage and Water Board, told WWL-TV's David Hammer last month that there was “no way” to replace the 20 megawatts of power provided by Turbine 5 without purchasing a replacement turbine for about $20 million.
Korban said the agency couldn't afford that cost.
It had planned to have an additional $10 million for improving power generation using the “Fair Share” tourism tax revenues negotiated by Mayor LaToya Cantrell last year. But thanks to the total shutdown of the tourism industry during the coronavirus shutdown, “we all know that’s not going to happen in the budgeted way,” Korban said.
Powering the pumps requires about 53 megawatts of power on the archaic 25-cycle power standard required for the equipment. Without the generator or the turbine, the S&WB says they have about 60 megawatts available between what they can generate at their Carrollton Plant and the small amount they can get from Entergy.
But even if no unexpected problems arise and all the pumps remain operational, street flooding will start to pop up throughout the city's lowest-lying areas as Cristobal moves north.
"We want the public to be aware that the intensity of some of these downpours may outpace our drainage system," S&WB said. "New Orleans' drainage system can collect and move considerable amounts of water in real-time, but it has limits. It is not designed to keep streets completely free of stormwater during a rain event."
The city's drainage system is over a century old, which has often led to problems when heavy rain falls. WWL-TV has highlighted these problems in an investigative series titled Down the Drain.
"The system is also old and can be vulnerable to storm-related challenges, such as lightning strikes. Therefore, there will be street flooding," S&WB said. "We urge residents to avoid underpasses and low-lying areas where water may pool."
More Stories:
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
