Why much of New Orleans flooded: Electric power line ‘trips,’ cutting power to pumps

Susan Roesgen
·1 min read
3

UPDATE:

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — In an email sent to WGNO at 9 p.m. Monday, Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans spokesperson Grace Birch reported that the power outage that led to the flooding lasted just five minutes, not nearly an hour.

Birch said that after the five minutes, it took about “10-15 minutes for the pumps to ‘reload.'”

“Electrical feeders providing 25Hz power to Drainage Pumping Stations 1 and 2 tripped offline for around 5 minutes at 5:10PM. Power was restored by re-routing through a different set of power cables at around 5:15 pm at which time water levels in the canals equalized and then began to drop.”

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — At the height of Monday afternoon’s rainfall, an electric “feeder” that supplies power to two of New Orleans’ pumping stations suddenly shut down.

That’s according to Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans spokesperson Grace Birch, who tells WGNO that the power disruption occurred around 5 p.m.

Part of River Road to close for railroad work in Jefferson

Birch said the lack of power affected the SWBNO’s Drainage Pump Stations One and Two, which pump water out of the French Quarter, Uptown, Downtown, CBD and part of Mid-City.

With those two stations out of operation, New Orleans residences and businesses were swamped for nearly an hour. Birch said power was “re-routed” from another source by 6 p.m.

As for the cause, Birch said that will have to be determined by an “after action assessment” by the SWBNO.

“It could have been the wind,” Birch told WGNO. “If it was an aerial feeder, we just don’t know yet.”

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