Posted on 09/07/2005 2:35:30 PM PDT by WestTexasWend
Louisiana engineers were on Wednesday on the brink of turning the lights back on in New Orleans in an imaginative plan to use the emergency generator of an air conditioning plant.
Operation Jump Start New Orleans entails jerry-rigging the air-conditioning plant’s huge diesel-powered backup generator to provide enough power to light and air condition several large hospital, administrative and dormitory buildings.
Some of the generator’s power will be rerouted to buildings that will be used to house emergency workers, National Guard troops, the US Army Corps of Engineers and federal agencies.
A triage medical centre and temporary shelter could also be up and running within days. Many of the buildings are connected by an elevated walkway.
The backup generator had worked throughout the hurricane to provide air conditioning to the Louisiana State University Medical Center and several other medical buildings. It survived the flooding without damage. Since then, however, the buildings it supplied have been evacuated.
That changed when the Jump Start plan was hatched by Bengt Järlsjö, a vice-president at the Shaw Group, the engineering and construction company, and the man who designed the plant for Entergy seven years ago. It took less than a day for Entergy, the local utility, and Louisiana State University to get on board.
“You want to provide hope. That New Orleans is alive, not dead,” said Mr Järlsjö, who is Shaw’s vice-president of project development, concepts and solutions. “Think of it in concentric circles. You start getting the plant up and running; you get a small centre up; get command and control up; get the medical facilities up – the emergency room – and then start opening up living quarters.”
The 8MW plant has 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel on site and can provide air conditioning and electricity for 2m sq ft.
Other potential power sources are now beginning to emerge. A.J. Finnin, a New Orleans engineer who consults utilities, hospitals and universities, pointed to possibilities at the University of New Orleans, Tulane University and Xavier University. “What we are looking for are three things: You need a site with potential. One of the things all of these sites have is dormitories to put workers in. Second, can these sites make electricity? Third, is their cooling system operable?” he said.
Also important, but more easily securable, are clean water, proper sewage and communication capabilities. “If you have power you can get all these,” he said.
Tulane fits all three criteria and the other universities have dorms, cooling systems, but no power generation on site. But, providing the cooling systems have not been too damaged by the hurricane and flood, Mr Finnin said power generation could be secured within the time it took to truck generators in.
Good old American know-how. And the screaming heads in the media said it would be weeks, MONTHS!, before any degree of power could be restored.
entails jerry-rigging
you have jerry-rigging politics there, why not jerry-rig the power.
This may be a dumb question, but aren't they going to electrocute a bunch of people? (Water + wet wires + electricity = water conducting electricity just like the telephone in the bathtub stories?)
THANKS for the pic! Did this make the news last night or this morning?
(I'm restricting my watching to football right now.)
The news story was posted today at 9:24 AM. I just followed a link from Drudge.
WOW - PFM, some smart folks working the efort ...
Wow...I'm slipping. I swear I didn't see this on Drudge the several times I checked in earlier today. Guess it's old news, then. Still, the logistics amaze me...and that pic really is beautiful!
Although such creative improvisation is to be much admired in times of crisis, the term "jerry-rig" is actually a derogatory description of the hastey/quick/shoddy manner in which something is constructed. I've seen some people claim that it is an ethnic slur against Germans because of the slang term "Jerry" that was used during WW-II (and because of it's similarity to the -rigged phrase that uses the forbidden "n-word"). But other sources point out that the origin of the phrase, although unclear, goes back at least to the mid 1800s. Some speculate that it is derived from a reference to the city of Jericho (which fell down). Others contend that it may be associated with the Romany word for excrement: gerry.
WG, this is just off the top of my head, but as I recall, "jerry-rig" is a corruption of "jury-rig," a nautical term as in "jury-rigged rudder."
Gee, I thought I'd heard about everything, but that's a new one on me-- filing away in my lexicon.
how about jerry-mandering? (oh..nevermind) hehehehe
Maybe in Alexander Graham Bell's days.
As I recall, current telephone systems operate in the 12V (residential) or 24V (commercial) range with relatively low Amperage. It just doesn't take that much juice to push a voice down a wire to the nearest relay station.
Who told you that fishtale?
Throw a 1200W (volts x amps / power factor) hair dryer or toaster into a tub and you're gonna have a problem, plus your neighbors are gonna lose their lights.
Telephones zotting someone (with the exception of a lighting strike)? I've never heard of that. Your weewee might get a tingle, but that's about it.
You're correct thought, it's never good to mix water and 'lectrickery however, depends on how the saline content the water has, which in NOLA right now might be pretty high.
Distilled water (with no minerals) and juice is pretty safe.
A few weeks ago, we had a few manhole covers on our main street blow their lids, two days running, from some kind of electrical overload complicated by either sewer methane or gas leaks.
I was amazed that the firemen were just pouring water down the holes, but I figured that they'd cut the local power by then, and were just trying to put out the stanky burning insulation.
There's still friggin' power company trucks and temporary generators out there as of today.
You're right however, from what I've seen of our local power company, and the results of two consecutive manhole cover blow-outs, I don't trust them very much.
p.s. The engineering firms always send the junior, unmarried EE guy, out into the field to take high-voltage electrical meter measurements inside live distribution panels with exposed bus bars.
p.p.s. You gotta be a fairly slight, nimble guy not to turn into a fried squirrel, LOL.
Speaking of fried squirrels, our power went out acouple weeks ago, and as the neighbors all gathered out at the street to figure out what happened, the neighbor's dog came out of the bushes with a ried squirrel.
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