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Regional officials had to scramble to get power to pumps that supply water for a quarter million Houston residents and another roughly half million who live to the east and south of the city. Water supplies were starting to run low at the Lynchburg Reservoir because of power outages in Baytown.
A dozen pumps move 800 million gallons of water per day from the Trinity River east of Houston to the Lynchburg Reservoir. Hurricane Rita knocked out power to those pumps over the weekend. Houston Mayor Bill White says 600-thousand residents in the greater Houston area and much of the petro chemical industry rely on that water supply.
White says the normal five day capacity dropped to less than three days worth.The pumps are powered by Entergy which has seen wide spread power outages because of Rita. Regional officials worked on getting emergency power to the pumps. That included an emergency connection between the Centerpoint electricity grid and Entergy. Centerpoint Regulatory Operations Vice President Tom Standish
Back-up generators are also being installed not only to address the current problem, but will also remain in place for future use. The pumps had to be checked for damage before restarting. Houston Public Works Director Mike Marcott says Houston’s reliance on the Trinity River water supply has grown over the years. He says it holds one-point-five billion gallons water.
Several pumps were back in operation yesterday afternoon and the rest were expected to be working by today. It’ll take about two days to replenish the reservoir.