"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...


Wonder how long it will be before we make the $100 muffaletta trip
to Lakefront again--if indeed we ever do?



It will be a while.

When I did this job:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Boats.htm#Dimillo

The drydock was pumped down to put the ferry in at night because
electric rates were cheaper. The drydock was the largest connected
electric load in Maine and it would have cost $150,000 to pump it 15
feet down and 15 feet up in the day time. It still cost plenty to do
it at night. Presumably, they will pump New Orleans 24 hours a day.

The drydock was about 900 x 120 feet = 108,000 square feet. New
Orleans, now flooded to about the same depth is 5,000,000,000 square
feet or 46,464 times as large. At the daytime energy prices of Maine
a decade ago, it would therefore cost $6,969,600,000 to pump the city
out. The discharges on the drydock pumps were only about 100 feet
long and the city pumps have the head losses of many hundreds of feet
in some cases. Energy prices are going to be way higher by the time
they get this system running. It might be cheaper to just leave it as
a lake and rebuild somewhere else.

A FEMA manager said yesterday that some young staffers just starting
will still be working on the aftermath of Katrina when they retire.

--

Roger Long