Draining New Orleans could take 80 days- Army (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

Draining New Orleans could take 80 days- Army

Fri Sep 2, 2005 05:32 PM ET

By Jim Loney

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Engineers may need up to 80 days to remove Hurricane Katrina's flood waters from the swamped New Orleans, a senior U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official said on Friday. Work crews gained control over one of the breaches in the levee on Friday and expected to have another major gap closed on Saturday, Brig. Gen. Robert Crear told reporters at a briefing in Baton Rouge.

"We're looking at anywhere from 36 to 80 days to being done," Crear said. The bowl-shaped city is mostly below sea level and ringed by 350 miles of earthen levees designed to hold back floodwaters as well as Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

The levees are configured in 13 rings and Hurricane Katrina gouged major breaches into two of them, allowing the lake water to gush in and submerge 80 percent of the city. Lake Pontchartrain was still receding on Friday and was expected to drop by another foot.

But when it reaches its normal level, the lake will still be about a foot above sea level. The city sits an average 6 feet below sea level so that will still leave much of New Orleans under 7 feet of water that cannot drain on its own and must be pumped out.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9550460&src=rss/topNews>
(more at link above)

[undergroundpanther]

1. Does

New Orleans ever reach freezing Temperatures in winter?
If it does this year, expect longer.(global warming?)

[FloridaPat]

3. Temperature is like Florida. Since they're on the ocean they

probably don't even get hard freezes.

[Endangered Specie]

14. I dont think so.

Its about as close to full blown tropical climate as you can get in the US. Im sure theweatherchannel could cite some stats/facts.

[jean]

2. how will they treat the toxic water and where will they drain it to?

[Kenneth ken]

4. good question

unfortunately Jim Loney (wrote the article) either didn't ask or didn't report that they avoided answering.

[Up2Late]

7. It drains into Lake Ponchartrain, and treat it? Yeah Right, have you...

...ever seen the the color of that lake when it's not all stirred up? Yuck! The Top picture at the link below is fairly normal for that Lake

Date: 2004/070 - 03/10
19 :25 UTC
Fires across Southern United States
Satellite: Aqua

Click Thumbnail Then click top image a the NASA page.

Note: To get a good look, you should view the 250m image, though it is very large.

[Whoa_Nelly]

5. Pumping the water out is one thing

There are also many other things that will have to be taken into consideration when this is going on: garbage of all types, sewer overflow, cars (not to mention the gallons upon gallons of gas still in those cars), human and animal remains, lumber, roofing material, glass, other housing materials, peoples belongings, and more.

This will be a monumental task.

[pinniped]

6. I have a feeling they're just gonna shove all the debris and waste into...

the ocean.

We already heard Rummy the Dummy state they don't give a shit about the environment during war.

I already knew they didn't give a shit about the environment war time or not.

[chelsea0011]

9. They said a couple of days ago, it will go right back to the Gulf

with all it's waste. There is nothing else to do.

[booksenkatz]

8. Remember how they sifted thru the WTC asbestos for wedding rings?

I have a feeling that we're not going to see that level of painstaking care with these items, even if toxicity were not an issue.
:(

[IDemo]

10. This will make the 5,000 square mile dead zone

in the Gulf a toxic soup. Shrimp cocktail, anyone?

[Up2Late]

11. Is that with or with out the current dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico?

Shrimp anyone?

[maddezmom]

12. WDSU reporting FEMA says 6 mos to drain, 3 mos to dry

:shrug:

[Endangered Specie]

13. Conflicting reports all over, my calculation is about 100 days...

plus how long it takes to plug the levee and assuming no other levees bust.

NO pumps at 100% can drain an inch of water an hour out of there. So, assuming an average height of water at 4 feet, and that the pumping system will only be, on average throughout the course of draining, at 50%. That works out to 4*12/.5 = 96 rounds to 100.

[maddezmom]

15. I'll take your calculation over FEMA

never was any good at math. :)

[rustydad]

16. Perhaps

If everything works perfect. But if pumps clog (they will) or burn out or if it rains or if a water logged levee breaks or any numbe of things then 100 days goes away. But even if it gets drained then what? Thousands of buidings utterly water logged. Thousnads of vehicles unrepairable. It is such a mess I cannot contemplate how it can be put back together. It seems impossible. Soooo damned sad. bob