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Dec. 17th, 2005
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Surgeon Wattabode
Dec. 17th, 2005 09:04 amExpanding on a point briefly mentioned yesterday:
The entity in charge of pumping tap water in and sewage and drainage water out of New Orleans is the Sewerage & Water Board, or in local pronunciation the "Surge an Watta Board", or the above title.
A friend tells a story of a woman who moved into her neighborhood from up north. My friend saw a city worker come up to the new arrival's new home to turn on the water. The worker knocked on the gate and announced, "Surge an Wattabode." The woman looked down from her porch and said, "Uh, we don't want any." "Surge an Wattabode, Lady!" "I said we don't want any." The water man shrugged his sholders and left.
The Board was established in 1899, and in its early decades was an internationally admired model, thanks to local legend A. Baldwin Wood. Engineer inventor Wood was one smart cookie, who invented dozens of new and improved plumbing, drainage, and sewage devices and designs, with all of his patents specifying that they could be used without royalty payments by his home town of New Orleans. His high capacity low maintance "Wood Screw Pumps" were adapted by the Netherlands for the Zuiderzee draining project.
Of course the city Wood designed his system for was less than 1/3rd the area that New Orleans would spread out into, and through the late 20th century the Sewage and Water Board was constantly trying to catch up drainage facilities and capacity to the much larger, developed, blacktopped, and lowlying array of neighborhoods.
The section of Interstate 10 connecting New Orleans with Metarie, the largest suburb, goes under a railroad track near the Parish line. Why highway designers put in underpasses rather than overpasses in a city with such a high water table I won't speculate-- and in this case they even had some of the city's above ground graveyards visible beside the highway. Can you possibly guess a potential problem here? Yep, it floods and becomes impassible in heavy rains. After this major evacuation route was blocked off when some folks were trying to leave as Hurricane Georges threatened the Gulf, it was decided to do something about this. For some no doubt good reason incomprehensible to my layman friends and myself, instead of making this part of the Interstate pass over rather than under the train tracks, a multi million dollar project created a humongous pumping station to drain the low point.
And you'll never guess this curious detail: It turns out that the water only gets drained out when the pump is actually turned on.
You may have caught network footage a day or two after Katrina of some distracted bozo driving his car into the flooded underpass and being rescued by the tv news crew.
The other night a rainstorm rendered the underpass impassible again. Electric power had still not been restored to the multimillion dollar pumping station. They did have back up generators there-- but they only worked when someone got to the station to turn them on. So, after I-10 was blocked for some 5 hours, a S&WB employee made it to the station to turn on the pump, and it was drained in 3 minutes.
So it goes.
The entity in charge of pumping tap water in and sewage and drainage water out of New Orleans is the Sewerage & Water Board, or in local pronunciation the "Surge an Watta Board", or the above title.
A friend tells a story of a woman who moved into her neighborhood from up north. My friend saw a city worker come up to the new arrival's new home to turn on the water. The worker knocked on the gate and announced, "Surge an Wattabode." The woman looked down from her porch and said, "Uh, we don't want any." "Surge an Wattabode, Lady!" "I said we don't want any." The water man shrugged his sholders and left.
The Board was established in 1899, and in its early decades was an internationally admired model, thanks to local legend A. Baldwin Wood. Engineer inventor Wood was one smart cookie, who invented dozens of new and improved plumbing, drainage, and sewage devices and designs, with all of his patents specifying that they could be used without royalty payments by his home town of New Orleans. His high capacity low maintance "Wood Screw Pumps" were adapted by the Netherlands for the Zuiderzee draining project.
Of course the city Wood designed his system for was less than 1/3rd the area that New Orleans would spread out into, and through the late 20th century the Sewage and Water Board was constantly trying to catch up drainage facilities and capacity to the much larger, developed, blacktopped, and lowlying array of neighborhoods.
The section of Interstate 10 connecting New Orleans with Metarie, the largest suburb, goes under a railroad track near the Parish line. Why highway designers put in underpasses rather than overpasses in a city with such a high water table I won't speculate-- and in this case they even had some of the city's above ground graveyards visible beside the highway. Can you possibly guess a potential problem here? Yep, it floods and becomes impassible in heavy rains. After this major evacuation route was blocked off when some folks were trying to leave as Hurricane Georges threatened the Gulf, it was decided to do something about this. For some no doubt good reason incomprehensible to my layman friends and myself, instead of making this part of the Interstate pass over rather than under the train tracks, a multi million dollar project created a humongous pumping station to drain the low point.
And you'll never guess this curious detail: It turns out that the water only gets drained out when the pump is actually turned on.
You may have caught network footage a day or two after Katrina of some distracted bozo driving his car into the flooded underpass and being rescued by the tv news crew.
The other night a rainstorm rendered the underpass impassible again. Electric power had still not been restored to the multimillion dollar pumping station. They did have back up generators there-- but they only worked when someone got to the station to turn them on. So, after I-10 was blocked for some 5 hours, a S&WB employee made it to the station to turn on the pump, and it was drained in 3 minutes.
So it goes.
FEMA trailers
Dec. 17th, 2005 11:02 amOne of my neighbors up the street had much worse roof damage than I, resulting in major damage to much of his home. He has one of the few FEMA trailers in the neighborhood in his yard.
There have been many FEMA trailers stories in the news recently. Hundreds or thousands sitting unused in Arkansas and Florida while people are waiting for them in New Orleans and nearby Saint Bernard (which got a much higher percentage of their homes rendered uninhabitable than did the city). The mayor, City Council, and various neighborhood groups sparing about if neighborhood playgrounds are appropriate places to put trailers. Etc.
My neighbor's trailer experiences give one glimpse at the bureauacracy. The trailer has been sitting in his yard for some 2 weeks now. but it still hasn't been connected to to the electric line. One inspector came by, asked neighbor for the key, but neighbor still hadn't gotten the key, and the inspector didn't have one either. Still waiting for a key to get in it too. A worker did come by, delivering a propane tank. Then another worker came a few days later to hook it up, but saw that it was an all electric trailer. So a third worker came by to take the propane tank back. So it goes.
There have been many FEMA trailers stories in the news recently. Hundreds or thousands sitting unused in Arkansas and Florida while people are waiting for them in New Orleans and nearby Saint Bernard (which got a much higher percentage of their homes rendered uninhabitable than did the city). The mayor, City Council, and various neighborhood groups sparing about if neighborhood playgrounds are appropriate places to put trailers. Etc.
My neighbor's trailer experiences give one glimpse at the bureauacracy. The trailer has been sitting in his yard for some 2 weeks now. but it still hasn't been connected to to the electric line. One inspector came by, asked neighbor for the key, but neighbor still hadn't gotten the key, and the inspector didn't have one either. Still waiting for a key to get in it too. A worker did come by, delivering a propane tank. Then another worker came a few days later to hook it up, but saw that it was an all electric trailer. So a third worker came by to take the propane tank back. So it goes.