Fearful New Orleans residents urge Corps to focus on pumps

More than 50 pumps were swamped by the saltwater of Hurricane Katrina.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Drilling what resembles rows of bullet holes through old wooden floors and plaster walls, Matt and Maureen McBride were able to air-dry their flooded, 1920s bungalow-style house in the city's historic Broadmoor neighborhood.
They covered it with a tent and pumped the home full of bacteria- and mold-killing gas. They replaced electrical wiring and threw out all but two pieces of furniture.
But the McBrides and other residents of low-lying neighborhoods fear all their rebuilding efforts could be for nothing if the city's massive system of pumping stations and drainage canals is not up to the job for the next hurricane season, less than a month away.
"Tens of thousands of people's lives could be affected because of a lack of pumping," said Matt McBride, a mechanical engineer who does research for the Broadmoor Improvement Association. "We shouldn't have to take it on the chin twice in two years."
Guarded by levees
New Orleans is guarded by a network of levees that defend against storm surges, or rising seas caused when storms push up from the Gulf of Mexico. The pumps and canals also channel excess rainfall out of the city's saucer-shaped landscape.
More than 50 of those pumps, some the size of locomotives, were swamped by saltwater during Katrina. The pumps have been dried and tested, but reliability remains a question. At least five have caught fire since being put back in service, including three during a late April storm.
Few argue with the Corps' rationale that a storm surge is more damaging than heavy rainfall. That's why the Corps is installing flood gates on three major drainage canals and spending most of its resources repairing flood walls and earthen levees that broke or were eroded during Hurricane Katrina.
Hurricane season
But residents and several Louisiana politicians are urging the Corps to figure out a way to install more pumps at the gates -- and fast. Hurricane season begins June 1, and the worst storms tend to strike in August.
Pump manufacturer MWI of Florida said the Corps has inquired about additional pumps but has yet to order any. Vice President Marc Boudet said the company could make as many pumps as needed within 12 to 14 weeks of an order.
The Corps, however, cannot spend money at will on the project, agency spokesman Paul Johnston said. First, it would have to acquire rights-of-way to make space for more pumps.
"Some people think the Corps can do anything they want, anytime they want, and that isn't quite correct," Johnston said. "Moving interior drainage water always has been a local effort, not a federal project."
Refurbish pumps
The Corps has pledged to spend nearly $37 million to refurbish flooded pumps.
The wiring on many pumps is more than a half-century old, and the saltwater flooding has compromised its insulation, said G. Joseph Sullivan, general superintendent of the city's Sewerage and Water Board. So when the pumps generate heat, there's the potential for fire, he said.
Yet eight months after the storm, most pumps needing rewiring have not gotten it. The pumps now being refurbished are those that have caught fire -- and the water board is handling that through emergency bids. After the most recent pump fires, the Corps told board officials it would accelerate its schedule for bidding out contracts for more pump work.
It takes a month or more to rewire each pump, Sullivan said, and only a few can be taken off line for repairs at one time without substantially lowering pumping capacity. That means the entire job of rewiring more than 50 pump motors could take a year or longer.
And there's yet another weakness in the system. Some pumps stop working in a power outage because they have no backup electricity.
Sewerage and Water Board spokesman Robert Jackson said pumping capacity drops by up to 25 percent when those pumps shut off.
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