If the water is dropping a foot an hour, then why will it take 3 months?

[Seeker30]

Call me stupid but I can't figure this one out.

[Teaser]

1. Location of pumps, I'd guess.

Only 3(?) of many are working. Once their areas are pumped out, others have to come online.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

2. It's a good question

And here's a good answer.

"The Army Corps of Engineers said the timetable ranges from three weeks to nearly three months, depending on a string of variables, including rainfall, the still-unknown condition of the pumps abandoned to Hurricane Katrina, and whether the system can withstand the flotsam of broken buildings, trees, trash and corpses."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-09-07-no-evacuations_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA

[Wizard777]

3. I'm still trying to figure out how they where going to use "gravity

to drain" the Bowl? Gravity makes the water run down hill and a pump makes it run up hill.

[KharmaTrain]

4. It's Not Uniform

The sanitation system below those waterloged streets are clogged and it'll take months just to clear that out.

The trick here is eventually the engineers will have to trick nature and make water run uphill. There are areas in the city will need a working sewer system hooked up to the pumps (which just started working) to drain the lowest sections of the city.

Plus who knows what troubles could lie ahead...what's in that toxic soup that could jam up the pipes or create a fire or other hazzard.

I think six months is a good time frame for the city to be drained and "scrubbed".

[pnorman]

5. "A foot an hour"? That's news to me.

The last I heard was ~1/2" an hour; a number that "sounds about right" to me.

pnorman

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Because FEMA LIED

They wanted everyone to believe that this was an impossible job, that no one could ever go back to their homes.

Now ask yourself, why would they want people to believe this? Wouldn't have anything to do with taking their land now would it?

[BootinUp]

7. The estimate was extremely conservative

My guess.