A destructive line of storms with high winds swept across North Louisiana this morning, knocking out power to thousands of customers from Bossier to East Carrol and Madison parishes. In just a few hours, crews have been able to restore power to approximately 10,000 customers.
Spring symbolizes a new beginning, but when it comes to seasonal changes, the uncertainty of weather remains.
To support a local roadway project and add resilience to the electric system, crews installed eight concrete poles in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Workers dug holes, used a crane to set poles and installed new wire. The project took place near Entergy’s facility along Pecue Lane that serves as the company’s state command center during times of major events such as power restoration following a hurricane.
Entergy is taking steps to inform customers that utility bills are likely to be higher than normal this winter.
Local philanthropists Oliver G. “Rick” and Donna Richard have dedicated a downtown statue saluting the linemen and linewomen who came from all over the United States to restore electrical power after Hurricane Laura.
The last two hurricane seasons have shown that extreme weather events are impacting the Gulf Coast region more often and with more severity. And this means additional costs to repair and disruptions to our customers. In just the last few years, Entergy’s service area has been impacted by multiple, more frequent, and intense severe storms, including hurricanes Laura and Ida; two of the strongest hurricanes to ever hit Louisiana.
Louisiana residents have used a lot of power over the past couple of months, and that increased usage coupled with high natural gas prices used to produce electricity has impacted utility bills.
Utility crews are expected to have power restored to the vast majority of Louisiana customers tonight following the impact of Wednesday’s severe weather. As of 5:00 p.m. Thursday, approximately 2,500 Entergy Louisiana customers remained without power, down from a peak of roughly 42,000. Entergy New Orleans’ peak of 4,274 outages due to the Wednesday storm have been completely restored.
Utility crews have restored power to all New Orleans East customers affected by Tuesday’s severe weather and expect to restore power to Arabi-area customers who can safely accept electric service by sometime today.
Utility crews are continuing to make progress restoring power to communities in Orleans and St. Bernard parishes that were affected by severe weather and a tornado last night. They expect to restore power to: