Flood Water Pumping
Flood water pumping is emerging as a viable solution for draining highly flooded areas. This is welcome news, because during outages, flooded roadways represent a huge drag on utility crews’ ability to mobilize and restore power in a timely fashion.
Example of Flood Water Pumping
In late February 2019, certain areas within the state of Alabama were hammered by an extreme amount of rainfall – all told, northern Alabama received nearly 14 inches of rain during the month, nearly 9 inches above average. This caused all kinds of inconveniences for local residents, from property damage to difficulty leaving their homes to lack of mail delivery.
Because of ground over-saturation, several areas remained underwater for weeks. This prompted the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) to deploy an array of 6-inch pumps to try and alleviate the flooding. Drones were deployed in order to identify the areas most in need of flood water pumping, and ALDOT rented the pumps at a cost of approximately $3,000 per week.
After the water was drained, highways were inspected to identify any areas where traffic restrictions remained warranted, and plans were set in motion to develop emergency exits and raise certain roadways.
As this example illustrates, municipalities and/or transportation authorities should take the lead when it comes to flood mitigation. However, utility companies should be prepared as well.
In my opinion, flood water pumping should be considered when developing emergency plans and protocols. This might involve acquiring and storing pumps for rapid deployment when needed, developing criteria for determining when to deploy the pumps, developing drone or similar technology to prioritize flood water pumping efforts, training personnel on pump operation, and enhancing communication protocols with transportation and municipal agencies to account for the possibility of extreme flooding.
The point is that utilities can never be too prepared no matter what the scenario, and developing plans that involve flood water pumping is no exception.
