I was watching the weather report and the forecast is for rain just about every day this week. Here in the Ohio Valley, this spring has been an extremely wet one. The ground is so saturated that when you step on the grass, water oozes out like a sponge. I feel particularly sorry for our southern friends who end up with all our run off as well as the winter thaw from the northern states. Flooding waters have caused much misery and property damage.

I got a call from a gentleman from Tennessee that needed a pump to clean out his business establishment. Electric vacuums did not have the capacity for the massive amounts of water in the building and sump pumps could only get the water down to an inch from floor level. He needed a large capacity vacuum that could pump a large volume of water and well as clean the floor dry. Another problem …no electricity. The power company turned off the juice because of the danger of downed power lines submersed under water.

I suggested our 110 gallon premium Reversible Drum Vac system. It can pump 30 gallons per minute and with the heavy-duty accessory tools it can vacuum clean the floors. These operate on compressed air with no moving parts and would be ideal for his application. My concern though was how would generate compressed air without electricity. He jokingly said “Southern Yankee ingenuity”. Being a dealership he had a staff of mechanics that could rig up most anything from nothing he boasted.

What they did is commandeered a gasoline motor and retrofitted it to their compressed air system. They had plenty of gasoline that they siphoned out of the cars setting on the lot. Clean up was quick and easy and they were open for business the next day.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer

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