Comments on: The absolute, utter worthlessness of newspaper numbers

By: mostly cajun

mostly cajun — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 18:11:45 +0000

Homebru—

Pump geek?

man, I’d like to have a certificate attesting to that fact?

By: homebru

homebru — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 13:55:30 +0000

Pump geeks. Who knew that there were pump geeks?

By: george.w

george.w — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 23:36:55 +0000

THANKS, Cajun! Folks, that first link is an entire downloadable book covering all aspects of the subject - several lunch hours worth. All the chapters are in my laptop now.

The second link is a 10-page white paper on early NOLA, Baldwin Wood, the pump he invented, and the No. 1 pumping station. As my kids can tell you, I eat this kind of stuff up.

From early perusal, it seems my initial assessment of the Chicago Tribune’s illustration was correct - they didn’t correctly show the scale or relationships of the pumps. Still more evidence that “journalism” as a college major prepares you to entertain but not necessarily to inform.

By: mostly cajun

mostly cajun — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 21:15:23 +0000

Here’s a link to a Corps of Engineers history of New Orleans drainage:
National Register Evaluation of New Orleans Drainage System, Orleans Parish, Louisiana

According to that document, in 1992, the total system capacity (all the pumping stations in the city on line) was 47,000 cubic feet per second. That makes that 29 billion gallons per day a pretty accurate number.

Some of those pumps are 12 FEET in diameter. Here’s another link:

No. 1 Pumping Station, New Orleans, La., June 11 1974

These pumps did 247,500 gallons per minute using 600 (!) horsepower. That’s 356 MILLION gallons a day…