They should just raze the town and rebuild 100 miles upriver. This is from the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board:
Although we have lost all Entergy power, our teams are working quickly and decisively to make up for this with our self-generated power sources, including Turbines 4, 5, and 6 and EMD, as well as backup generators located at our drainage pumping stations. The Entergy loss of power is a significant loss of power for our 60 hz pumps and the 25 hz pumps we power through the frequency changers, but we are using our self-generated sources of power to drain stormwater and pump drinking water into the city.
This power loss also impacts our sewer pumping stations. Currently there is no backup power to operate any of those that were impacted. We are assessing how many of the 84 stations are impacted but the number may be very significant. We have worked to obtain backup power for some of these stations & we will mobilize those units when it is safe to traverse the city. In order to prevent sewage backups, we have asked residents to limit water usage at home, thus decreasing the amount of wastewater we must remove. This is a rapidly-developing situation. We will keep you updated as circumstances develop.
Got water? Good. No sewerage? Not so good. A major part of the city is below sea level (see my line about relocating the city 100 miles upriver) so this is going to be a problem.
To all those bench-warmers in DC - this is infrastructure. This is what needs to be addressed and not some feel-good social service. Here is a map of downtown New Orleans. Where it is red, there is no electricity:
That is what 831,659 customers without electricity looks like. We will know more tomorrow.
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