Speaking with WWL-TV earlier this morning, the Director of the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board, Ghassan Korban, confidently spoke about his department's readyness for Hurricane Sally and the ability to pump rainfall from the streets of New Orleans.
"In terms of power, we have four turbines that are ready. Turbine 1,3,4, and 6. We have all five of our EMDs, these are our large generators, that are on the ready as well. And we have all of our frequency changers as well to use, mostly Entergy power to our 525 hertz pumps.
Korban says he's mostly concerned with how slow moving Sally is, as slow moving storms have the potential for piling on the water as it crawls across the region.
"That may result in heavier, slow moving rain which typically challenges our system," Korban said. "What we have today is 98 of our 99 pumps that are available to be used, one is down, but that's not really causing us any concern, it is a smaller pump in New Orleans East."
Korban says his department's personnel are at their stations ready for the arrival of the storm.
Certainly ramping up the staffing levels, sure that all our pumping stations are fully staffed. We're working with our partners at the City and Department of Public Works, to make sure that many of the catch basins are clear so they are optimsing capacity so they can carry water."
Sally's eye is forecast to make landfall Tuesday over Plaquemines Parish and move inland over the New Orleans metro area.