Power outage causes problems at Slidell plant

By Anne Lautzenheiser
St. Tammany News
Published on Friday, September 5, 2008 8:15 AM CDT

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In addition to the curfew warnings and notices of closings, there was another type of message sent out by the city of Slidell Monday.

Those residents that remained in the city were being advised not to flush their toilets.

The city’s sewage and water treatment plant was rendered inoperable by widespread power outages due to Hurricane Gustav.

While emergency generators were brought in to bring the plant up in phases, until power was fully restored they had to worry about backups in the system.

“The Terrace Avenue plant processes stuff that comes in from all over the city,” said Assistant Director of Operations Gene Swann. “With the pumps and filtration systems offline it could have been a real nightmare.”

Swann said as of Tuesday afternoon he wasn’t aware of any complaints from residents and said it helped that so many had heeded evacuation orders.

Cleco restored power early Tuesday afternoon, but Swann said he expected it would take another 12 to 18 hours for the system to be fully operational.

“No one should have any problems now,” he said.

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