[StBernard] UNO students tour corps' canal work

[Westley Annis]

UNO students tour corps' canal work
 By JOE GYAN JR.
Advocate New Orleans bureau
Published: Oct 13, 2007 - Page: 11A 

NEW ORLEANS - Two outfall canals that were the site of three levee breaches
blamed for flooding a large part of the city during Hurricane Katrina served
as an outdoor classroom Friday for a small group of University of New
Orleans engineering students.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials took the group on an educational tour
of the hulking pumping stations and massive floodgates built at the mouths
of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals after the storm to prevent a
repeat of the flooding that contributed to inundating 80 percent of New
Orleans.

Even though UNO is adjacent to the London Avenue Canal, which breached on
its west and east sides during Katrina, most of the students - all members
of the UNO chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers - had not seen
the pump stations and floodgates so up close and personal.

"I didn't know what to expect. Seeing the water pump out is really
impressive,'' senior Ashley Wainright, a mechanical engineering major, said
as four 60-inch pumps - two on each side of the London canal - belched muddy
water from the south side of the 11 floodgates to the Lake Pontchartrain
side of the gates.

Wainright, treasurer of the UNO chapter of the ASCE, said she is considering
a career with the corps.

Chapter president Mallory Davis, whose Chalmette home was swamped by
Katrina, said she hopes the corps can do for St. Bernard what it has done
for New Orleans in terms of storm surge protection.

"Maybe Chalmette will get some of this protection,'' Davis, who wore a hard
hat sporting the black and gold colors of the New Orleans Saints and a
fleur-de-lis, said.

The Orleans Avenue Canal, which sits between the 17th Street and London
Avenue canals, also was equipped with a temporary pumping station and
interim floodgates after Katrina. The Orleans canal did not breach during
the storm.

In just two hours, the UNO students got a crash course in the canals,
pumping stations and floodgates.

They learned from Ray Newman in the operations division of the corps' New
Orleans District that there are 11 floodgates at both the 17th Street and
London Avenue canals and five at the Orleans canal. There are a combined 73
hydraulic and direct-drive pumps at the mouths of those canals: 43 at the
17th Street, 20 at the London, and 10 at the Orleans. The gates are
12&permil feet high when in the lowered position.

They also learned from Jim St. Germain, a senior project manager in the
corps' hurricane protection office in New Orleans, that the 17th Street
pumping station can pump from 8,800 to 9,200 cubic feet of water per second,
while the London station has a pumping capacity of 5,000 to 5,200 cfs and
the Orleans station has a 2,200 cfs capacity.

"We're stopping the lake surge from getting up against those (flood)
walls,'' he said.

Tanks at the 17th Street and London canals hold 80,000 gallons of diesel
fuel for the pumps. There are 40,000 gallons on standby at the Orleans
canal.

Dan Bradley, branch chief of the pumps project delivery team in the
hurricane protection office, told the students that the safe water levels in
the three outfall canals is 5 feet in the London canal, 6 feet in the 17th
Street and 8 feet in the Orleans.

Anything above those levels and the canals' floodwalls could topple.

"We can't afford to have high levels in the canals,'' Newman said.

The pumping stations at the three canals also are equipped with control
rooms that double as safe houses for pump personnel.
 The concrete walls are 12 inches thick and can withstand winds of more than
150 mph, and the structures sit 12 1/2 feet off the ground. The rooms also
boast an escape hatch.

"We would hope no one would ever have to use that,'' Bradley said.
 

  
 
  
 

  
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