The Category 4 hurricane only made landfall in the Bahamas, but areas of South Carolina recorded record-setting flooding reaching up to 2 ft in parts resulting from blown out dams.
Though its main campus was spared from the brunt of the rainfall, Robert Wells, Chief Facilities Officer at Clemson University in Clemson (SC), asked Global Pump for preventive flood relief on a weekend during which the campus hosted a nationally-televised football game. Wells was concerned that a pump station on the outskirts of campus would need some assistance keeping up with the stormwater.
Global Pump Account Manager Rich Kelly and his team determined that Wells would need four Global Pump 18GSTAP diesel-driven pumps tied in to independent 18-inch HDPE discharge lines with a discharge run approximately 600 ft from the pumps. These pumps pull from the basin that fed the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) pump station, pumping up and over a 60 ft high earth dam into Lake Hartwell.
“We were able to talk to the officials at Clemson and get an understanding of not only their suction and discharge points, but also their delivery schedule requirements, campus layout and where we might install equipment that would be effective for relief, but non-obtrusive to any campus traffic flow, says Kelly.
"These types of considerations allow us to reinforce our value as pump specialists, and not just general equipment rental providers.”
Pump delivery occurred on 4 October and job setup continued on-schedule. Though the stormwater did not compromise the pump station, University officials were granted the permits necessary to test backup pump performance. Upon successful testing, the equipment was quickly dismantled.
“Our goal was to provide relief at 20,000 gallons per minute, but we were actually able to reach 21,600 gallons per minute,” Kelly reports.
