Providing pumps and real-time data during Hurricane Sandy

Opinions are divided on whether or not Hurricane Sandy was fuelled by climate change, but the fact is this extreme storm in the US in October caused a massive amount of destruction and loss of life. According to scientists, storms such as this will become more common and one factor that caused Sandy to swell was that ocean waters were about 1° warmer thanks to man-made climate change. Catastrophes such as this call for innovative solutions and technology from companies such as Xylem to help monitor the situation and control the clean-up in its aftermath.

Sandy, a hurricane of historic proportions, delivered massive flooding and power outages. During and after the storm, Xylem instruments delivered invaluable information and the pumps moved water out of huge structures and small homes.

The devastating impact of Hurricane Sandy on New York City and the northeast US surprised some people - but thankfully the people at Xylem were not among them. The company knew that time is critical in the aftermath of such huge storms, whether it means pumping out someone’s basement or something much larger. Grant Salstrom, managing director of Xylem’s Godwin dewatering business, and his entire team spent the days leading up to the hurricane gathering hundreds of powerful Godwin dewatering pumps from all across the country and stockpiling them in Xylem branch locations and distribution sites near the hurricane’s projected path.

As the storm raged across the region on 29 and 30 October, causing massive flooding and power outages, hundreds of Godwin Dri-Prime and hydraulic submersible pumps were deployed to those who needed to move massive amounts of water without any available electricity. Distributors of Xylem’s Flygt-brand submersible pumps prepared to help customers, as well.

Xylem’s dewatering pumps are made for various applications, including large-scale emergency and on-the-move projects. They are portable, capable of moving lots of water quickly and can be rented or purchased as required. In addition, they feature the Godwin Dri-Prime capability that provides automatic self-priming so operators don’t have to fill the pumps with water manually.

From the World Trade Center site in New York City to numerous wastewater treatment plants and other flooded locations throughout the Northeast, customers were using the pumps to minimise - or eliminate - flood damage at their operations.

“Our goal is to get people back to normal as quickly as possible,” Salstrom said. “We already [had] 200 pumps in place in the storm impact zone just one day after the storm, with more on the way. We have a lot of experience in storms like this, and we take a special pride in helping people quickly when they need it.”

Xylem also moved quickly to ensure that homeowners and small businesses have the pumps they need to recover in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Pump distributors throughout the Northeast were supplied with excess inventory of Bell & Gossett- and Goulds Water Technology-branded sump pumps that could be used - once power was restored - to remove floodwaters from basements and other low-lying structures.

Where power didn’t come on for days, the Evacuator Series of dewatering pumps was used. It runs on DC batteries and is capable of moving anywhere from 7500 to 30,000 L of water per hour depending on the model. Xylem has donated a number of the Evacuator units to the affected communities, focusing on specific locations where they could be best used.

A safer way to monitor Sandy

The damage from Sandy is still being calculated, but there’s no denying it would have been much worse without reliable readings of on-the-ground conditions that allowed responders to know where they were needed and what they were facing. At monitoring stations throughout the Northeast US, Xylem analytical instruments provided invaluable real-time data to national and state agencies.

Throughout the storm, its YSI sondes or multiparameter probes monitored water level and water quality changes in key waterways and automatically transmitted the information in real time using its YSI EcoNet system. This automated system made it possible for the monitoring agencies to reliably track Sandy’s impact without putting crews in harm’s way.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, these instruments are helping water quality experts monitor the health of drinking water sources, fish habitats and other sensitive conservation areas that might have been impacted by the inflow of seawater and the release of oil, sewage, sediment and other pollutants.