Entergy New Orleans feeds on the Sewerage & Water Board, which helps feed many of the city’s drainage pumps.
The disruption means S&WB is working with less margin of error in feeding its drainage system amid the worst rain the city has seen so far during Category 4 hurricane and among the heaviest floods it has experienced in the world. last years.
The S&WB’s massive but old pump system works with a combination of two types of electricity: its own power supply to an archaic standard used by about half of the pumps, in addition to the Entergy power lines that enter the plant. Carrollton and then to the underground pumping stations. and can feed the rest. All in all, the system needs about 52 megawatts of power to run at full capacity, which is required in the most severe storms.
A slow-moving Hurricane Ida has left all customers in Orleans Parish without electricity due to “catastrophic transmission damage,” according to Ent …
The S&WB started the day with about 70 megawatts of internal power, after putting one of its main turbines back in line after months of repairs. This, according to officials, meant it could withstand the loss of a major turbine and still keep the pumping system running at full capacity. Discussions about a potential loss of Entergy feeders did not arise in these system evaluations.
In addition, S&WB spokeswoman Courtney Barnes said drainage pumps that had been powered by Entergy could be switched to generator power.
“Viously, obviously, that’s not ideal,” Barnes said in a text message. “We’ve lost at least 12 megawatts of power and we’re still evaluating.”
Even without problems with the power systems or the pumps themselves, Ida was expected to pose a serious challenge to the capacity of the drainage system and would likely pour more rain faster than the pumps, pipes, and pumps could withstand. channels.
The cut was first noticed by Matt McBride, a frequent S&WB watchman, around 6:30 p.m. Neither S&WB nor Entergy sent their own warning that power had gone down.
Entergy did not immediately answer questions about the cut. But the company issued a specific statement around seven in the afternoon saying all power in the city had been lost. “The intensity of Hurricane Ida has caused catastrophic damage to its passage, including a load imbalance in the company’s transmission and generation,” the company said.
He later posted an update saying he had provided backup generation to S&WB, but did not go into details.
S & WB’s main 99 drainage pumps, 96 of which were available before Ida arrived, run on a combination of its own turbines and direct feed from Entergy. These Entergy fountains run underground to bomb stations scattered throughout the city.
No problems have yet been reported with the S&WB’s own power supplies, which a major turbine put back online just before Ida arrived.
The power supply of the pumps has been a constant struggle in recent years, although often the cause of concern has been the S & WB’s own turbines. These equipments, a century old in some cases, are needed to generate the type of electricity that uses about half of the city’s pumping capacity and has been affected by problems in recent years that have shut down several turbines.
However, Entergy’s cuts to specific stations have also been blamed for pump problems in some storms.
The disruption occurred when Ida’s worst rain so far affected the New Orleans area, supplying torrents of water in sheets along with strong winds.
It also came on the same day that at least two dozen S&WB sewer elevators lost power to Entergy, prompting S&WB to ask residents to refrain from using washing machines, dishwashers or other appliances that could overload the sewer system and cause backups. The sewer system is unrelated to the drainage system and these outages were not directly connected to the loss of the power lines.