Much has been asked about the Jefferson County Drainage District 7’s performance during Jan. 27 recent flooding. But how did the city of Port Arthur’s pumps perform?

Armando Gutierrez, public works director for Port Arthur, wrote via email the city pumps held up as well as can be expected.

“The pumps start up automatically when the water reaches a certain level,” he said. “Additionally, operators respond and provide on-site inspections to ensure they are operating.”

He said clogging from debris wasn’t an issue in the proper functioning of the pumps and “all was well.” Moreover, all of stations were online.

On the other hand, Phil Kelley, manager of DD7, said in a prior News article debris clogging drains had much to do with causing many people to flood.

“Debris had a lot to do with it and probably would have caused a lot of people to flood. If it was clean, I’m not sure it wouldn’t have had any impact to begin with,” Kelley said.

The city has three drainage pump stations at three different locations in the city and one pump at each of the railroad crossings at Memorial Boulevard and Gulf Avenue. The three pumps stations are in the areas of El Vista, Montrose and Foster Estates.

Gutierrez said routine preventive maintenance work is always provided to ensure they stay in good shape.

Each of the three drainage pump stations consist of two pumps — one pump is powered by an electrical feed and the second pump is powered by a diesel engine.

Furthermore, the three drainage pump stations are being included in the Tropical Storm Harvey Mitigation plan for elevation and remote fueling to ensure continued operation during flooding.

Kelley made special mention of Jan. 27’s unusually high rainfall and the drainage district’s usual handling capacity. In fact, rainfall was so heavy over such a short amount of time that he was not entirely certain whether parts of the city would have flooded regardless of debris clogging so many drainage systems.

“Our system was initially designed for 111/2 inches in a 24-hour period,” he said. “But when you get 10 inches in three to four hours, you exceed capacity.”

Areas of the city reported 10 inches or more in as little as a few hours, something no one was expecting.

“With the National Weather Service, they predicted 1-2 inches of rain — and here we get 10 to 12 inches,” Kelley said.

Furthermore, adhering to their regular operations, district workers could usually rely on their preparation to keep water levels in check.

“Sometimes we get pop-up storms at night. Our rain gauges are set up where so many counts of rain sets a (worker’s) pager off,” Kelley said.

“They’ll let the guy on duty know where it’s coming from. He looks at the radar and determines whether we need to man the facilities or not.”

Kelley said the district’s routine of maintaining its system usually prepares them for whenever it rains.

“We also have other people who are on-call duty for after hours and weekends to man our control center,” Kelley said. “If there is rain coming, they will be there anyway.”

Kelley said the district has workers going out before, during and after rain, driving around neighborhoods checking on limbs and other debris that might impede proper flow or litter road crossings.