Nate aims at New Orleans amid worries about drainage system

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — When Tropical Storm Nate formed Thursday and forecasts put New Orleans in its projected path, one big question loomed for residents and business owners: Will the pumps work?

“That’s now a thought in everybody who lives in New Orleans,” said Devin Shearman, a manager at Katie’s restaurant and lounge, which flooded during an unexpected rainstorm Aug. 5. It was one of two flash floods this past summer that led to revelations about personnel and equipment problems at the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, the agency that runs the pumping system that drains the city.

Some pumps weren’t working. Some turbines that provide power to the pumps were down. There weren’t enough people on hand to man the system.

“Since early August, we have made substantial progress,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said of work to upgrade the city drainage system. But he warned at a Thursday news conference that extremely heavy rain and storm surge from Nate still could pose flood dangers.

Nate formed in the western Caribbean Sea and moved into Central America on Thursday. Forecasters said it would likely emerge in the Gulf of Mexico and strengthen, possibly reaching hurricane strength before a Sunday morning landfall somewhere along the Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama coast. Officials in the resort town of Grand Isle on a vulnerable barrier island south of New Orleans called a voluntary evacuation Thursday. To the east, in coastal St. Bernard Parish, authorities ordered an evacuation of areas not protected by levees.

In the center of Nate’s possible destinations was New Orleans, where the summer floods shook public confidence in the Sewerage and Water Board.

It’s a state-created agency governed by a board that includes the mayor and appointees of the mayor and the City Council.

After the Aug. 5 revelations, the agency’s executive director, Cedric Grant, resigned. Landrieu announced the appointment of a new six-member emergency team to run the agency, make immediate upgrades and recommend long-term changes.

The team is headed by veteran emergency expert Paul Rainwater.

“It’s an antiquated system,” Rainwater said Thursday, as he discussed his work and the decisions ahead on what will be needed in terms of equipment and personnel.