Governor declares emergency after pumps in New Orleans fail
NEW ORLEANS » Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency in New Orleans on Thursday after a power shortage threatened to cripple the city’s drainage pumps, the second time in less than a week that critical flood defenses have been strained during hurricane season.
With residents fearing even routine summer thunderstorms, officials closed city schools for the rest of the week and urged motorists to be mindful of where they park their vehicles when it rains. New Orleans is as much as seven feet below sea level, and a 133-mile network of drainage canals and pumps funnel storm water out of the city.
“If we get the heavier-than-expected rainfall, time will be of the essence,” the Democratic governor said. “This is a serious situation, but it’s not something to be panicked about.”
Before dawn Thursday, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu shocked city residents when he said a substation fire had knocked out a primary source of power for the city’s network of drainage pumps. The outage is diminishing electricity for the pumps that serve the East Bank of the city, which includes much of central New Orleans, including downtown and the French Quarter.
With three other turbine stations also out of service for repairs or scheduled maintenance, New Orleans was left with just one primary source of electricity to power its pumps.
Generators and alternative power supplies from the city’s main consumer electric supplier, Entergy New Orleans, will help offset some of the shortfall but probably couldn’t power all the pumps during bouts of heavy rain, the mayor said.
“We are right now running on our last backup power source,” Landrieu told New Orleans residents, many of whom also received emergency text messages warning them of the potential danger.
The fire and subsequent outage was another blow to a city that is still cleaning up after a major rainstorm Saturday flooded neighborhoods. Some had several feet of standing water.
The extended flooding was especially traumatic to residents here because New Orleans is nearing the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, the hurricane flooded 80 percent of the city and killed hundreds of residents.
Shortly after the flooding last weekend, the leaders of the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans initially stated that all 121 of the city’s pumps were operating during Saturday’s storm. But on Tuesday, amid deepening community skepticism, officials admitted that eight pumps had been out of service when the rain began.