On a parallel track, low-income and charitable giving efforts kicked into high gear. In April, Entergy Mississippi donated more than $385,000 to create the , launching an unprecedented response effort augmented by Entergy’s workforce across Mississippi.��

“It became evident that we needed to do more for customers and communities that were facing new hardships,” said Haley Fisackerly, Entergy Mississippi president and CEO. “The pandemic really took a toll on low-income households that were already struggling to make ends meet. We had to act fast to help working families with basic needs until their financial situations became more stable.”��

By leveraging its network of community partners, Entergy Mississippi directed relief funds to 15 organizations that were well-positioned to provide a variety of services. Recipients included Salvation Army agencies, United Way agencies, Mississippi Food Network, Refill Café and Extra Table.��

The company also formed new partnerships to address pandemic challenges.��

When a national shortage of hand sanitizer threatened workforce safety, Entergy worked with Cathead Distillery in Jackson to produce enough to supply its facilities in four states and offer free bottle fill-ups to communities.��

By mid-2020, Entergy had dedicated almost $3 million to in its four-state service area and The Power to Care, which helps low-income customers pay utility bills.��

Pandemic increases customer assistance efforts����

Entergy Mississippi also stepped up bill-payment relief efforts with an Enhanced Customer Assistance Plan, which expanded payment extension options, waived late fees, and reimbursed credit and debit card convenience fees. In addition, the company suspended service disconnects for non-payment and worked directly with customers on bill-payment arrangements that fit their specific needs.����

Entergy earned national recognition for its efforts to communicate with customers about bill-payment assistance. Many low-income customers were already familiar with the Low Income Home ���ϳԹ��� Assistance Program, but economic pressures caused by the pandemic expanded the pool of eligible recipients. Raising awareness among customers was key in helping them receive federal relief.��

On top of dealing with a pandemic, many Entergy customers were impacted by a devastating storm season in 2020 that included Hurricane Laura, the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in more than 160 years. Mississippi employees were part of a massive restoration team that worked around the clock to restore service safely, rebuild infrastructure, and help communities recover, all while following virus-prevention protocols.��

Through individual acts of generosity, employees throughout Mississippi did their part to support a variety of needs. They donated surgical masks to hospitals and first responders, delivered nonperishable food supplies to relief agencies, organized charitable fundraisers and volunteered in their communities.��

“With customers facing so many challenges during the pandemic, our employees were prepared to be part of the solution,” Fisackerly said. “They applied their training in safety, customer service and storm response to respond effectively to the crisis and keep the power flowing. Their performance helped reinforce the fact that when our customers and communities need us, we’ll always be there for them.”����

The larger-than-life statue depicts a lineman looking skyward, equipped with gear and a work belt. He stands just off the sidewalk outside the Richards’ Phoenix Building at the corner of Ryan and Kirby streets.

Rick Richard, CEO of Empire of the Seed, was inspired to launch the project after seeing the steady streams of bucket trucks headed down highways in 2020 to help restore power in storm-wrecked southwest Louisiana.

Hurricane Laura was the most destructive natural disaster in the region’s history, causing unprecedented property damage and a massive power outage that, for many, lasted nearly two weeks or more.

Tasked to help rebuild the system and restore power were thousands of linemen and other professionals who came down to the Lake Charles area from dozens of states and Canada.

Texas-based sculptor Janie Stine LaCroix, a native of the Lake Charles area, was commissioned by the Richards to create the statue.

“The greatest things come from people within the community,” said Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter in his dedication remarks — a comment that spoke to both the Richards’ philanthropy and the area’s resolve after Hurricane Laura.

Political leaders, business leaders and energy executives also took part in the statue’s dedication.

“I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to how far this community has come over the past two years,” said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. “In my mind, this statue does more than recognize the more than 26,000 men and women who came from every corner of the country to restore a sense of normalcy. This statue represents the spirit of this community, the tenacity, the perseverance, the selflessness that is the spirit of Southwest Louisiana.”

May brought in linemen and a display of bucket trucks for the��ceremony.

LaCroix’s statue was installed by Tim Flavin and Flavin Construction Co. with coordination by the Richard family and Eva Riviere Gabilondo.

The COVID-19 pandemic, an economic shutdown and political turmoil: Could things have been much worse in late summer 2020? Yes, it turns out they could be and were, especially for electric utilities with operations across the U.S. Gulf Coast and their customers. A series of destructive storms hit the coastline.

On Aug. 27, Hurricane Laura slammed Louisiana with a ferocity not seen since 1856, decimating T&D equipment and even damaging some generation units. More than 900,000 ���ϳԹ��� customers were left in the dark, some for as long as 35 days. Just weeks after Entergy completed restoration work from Hurricane Laura, Hurricane Delta lashed many of the same areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas as a Category 2 hurricane, causing yet another round of widespread power outages. Then, on the heels of Hurricane Delta, came Hurricane Zeta, which delivered destructive high winds and heavy rains across a wide swath of Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia.

Destructive storms like these are an unfortunate but not unexpected part of living on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They hit harder in some years ― as in 2020 ― than others. The Colorado State University Tropical Weather & Climate Research team released a report April 7, 2021, stating the chance of a major landfall on any part of the U.S. coastline is 69% in 2021, compared to an average of 52% over the last century. CSU predicts 17 named storms will occur during the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. By comparison, 30 named storms occurred in 2020, and an average season sees 12 storms.

Having been in business for 108 years, Entergy is no stranger to major storms. Headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, the utility survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as well as hundreds of violent storms before and after it. However, the 2020 season ― Hurricane Laura, in particular ― was legendary. Thanks to a well-rehearsed plan, the utility was up for the challenge.

Linemen access damaged transmission structures��in a swampy area near Orange, Texas, in a fan boat.

Facing Down Hurricane Laura

Entergy lives by the adage: Prepare for the worst but hope for the best.

As Hurricane Laura gained strength over the warm waters of the Gulf in late August 2020, it became increasingly apparent to the utility’s emergency response planners this hurricane would be like the worst-case scenarios they plan for and run through during storm drills. The atmosphere was still settling from the recent Hurricane Marco when Hurricane Laura approached, making storm intensity and path predictions particularly difficult. With every mile Laura traveled across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the forecast for Louisiana and Texas became more ominous.

Entergy’s well-rehearsed storm plan calls for placing workers, equipment and materials close enough to the expected destruction to respond quickly, but far enough away to avoid damage themselves while they ride out the storm safely. As outside help from mutual-assistance partners and contractors were preparing for aid, the nearly 3000 Entergy employees in the path of the storm implemented their personal emergency plans and prepared to respond once the storm cleared and it was safe to do so.

Hurricane Laura exceeded expectations as it made landfall at Cameron, Louisiana, as a high-end Category 4 hurricane, packing sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kmph). In Laura’s wake would be the destruction of nearly 14,000 distribution poles and more than 1,900 transmission structures. Four Entergy power plants were damaged, as well.

The region of southwest Louisiana in and around Lake Charles took the brunt of the storm’s force while southeast Texas, served by Entergy Texas, sustained extensive damage that caused 120,000 customer outages. Because of the storm’s historic intensity, it continued through northern Louisiana and stubbornly held on as a tropical storm deep into Arkansas. As a result, a day after Laura made landfall, nearly 48,000 Entergy Arkansas customers also lost power.

Even as Hurricane Laura was traveling across Louisiana, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Entergy’s reliability coordinator, directed the utility to shed load in portions of Texas that were not affected by the storm. “Shedding load in the western regions of our system protected the stability of the bulk electric system and helped prevent further widespread outages,” explained Jim Schott, vice president of transmission for Entergy.

The most immediate challenge was the storm had taken out all nine transmission ties to Entergy Texas. This left southwest Louisiana completely isolated from the grid. “This is not a restoration,” said Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May at the time. “It’s almost a complete rebuild of our transmission and distribution system that serves Calcasieu and Cameron parishes.”

Hurricane Laura’s historic intensity caused sever damage to the Entergy distribution and transmission systems resulting in nearly 616,000 outages at its peak and impacting more than 919,000 customers in total.

Making Electricity

With the transmission lines into Lake Charles unable to bring in power from outside and the five local generating units out of service, Entergy engineers faced two interesting dilemmas: they needed power to make power and, once the utility started making power, customers needed to be ready to receive it.

As the winds calmed, restoration crews poured into the region and began rebuilding the T&D systems. Damage was so severe it would be well into September 2020 before any of the transmission feeds into Lake Charles were returned to service. The Calcasieu power plant is about 9 miles (15 km) southwest of Lake Charles. It was out of service but had suffered only minor damage, so getting it on-line was a priority.

An early major decision was whether to black start the Calcasieu plant, firing up portable diesel generators first to provide power to the fans, pumps and other systems in the station so, in turn, the plant could generate power to send to the grid. Entergy has power plants equipped for black starts, but the Calcasieu plant is not one of them. Nevertheless, its capability and available ties to transmission made it the quickest solution to return power to the region.

Black starting the Calcasieu plant introduced multiple complications. While the plant did not have its own backup generators, Entergy had some on order for use to power up pockets of the city or black start a power plant, or both. So, backup generation was on the way, but it was not there yet. Further, because the Calcasieu plant was not designed to be started with portable backup power, a lot of modifications would have to be made on the fly, with each modification carrying the risk of introducing a failure, explained Charles Long, Entergy’s vice president of transmission planning and strategy.

A less risky but still precarious option was to wait for a transmission line from neighboring utility Cleco Power to be rebuilt and restored to service, and then rely on that electricity to power the systems in Entergy’s generating plant. Cleco’s transmission lines had been ravaged by the storm, as well. “In an early discussion with Terry Whitmore, vice president of transmission services for Cleco, Entergy and Cleco restoration planning teams had agreed not to depend on each other any time soon due to the extreme damage to both systems,” Long recalled.

As restoration work progressed, Whitmore kept inching in on the restoration date of the Cleco line until an in-service date of Sept. 8 appeared more and more doable.

“So, we’re at this point where we’re getting the plant prepared so that it will be able to black start, and we’ve done some preliminary tests and things are checking out,” Long said. “Meanwhile, Cleco’s return-to-service estimation on that line kept getting better and better.”

It came down to either black starting the Calcasieu plant on Sept. 7 or starting with the Cleco power on Sept. 8.

In any major restoration, getting the power back on safely and as quickly as possible is what drives every decision when Entergy leaders develop strategy for what actions to take next. “In the end, the risks associated with black starting the plant just weren’t worth the reward of shaving off a few hours, so we went with the normal operations afforded by the Cleco line,” Long recalled.

Late in the evening on Sept. 8, the Cleco tie was closed and allowed to serve just a portion of one distribution feeder in Lake Charles.

Receiving Electricity

Getting the Calcasieu plant into a state where it could begin energizing the region in and around the city of Lake Charles was “just the beginning of the story,” Long explained.

Normally, the plant would place power on the grid and thousands of customers would consume it as it is produced. However, the grid was down and there were few customers ready to receive the power, either because of damage to their property or to the distribution lines that deliver the power.

“With just one transmission line coming in, you have to operate the plant as if it is an island,” Long said. “You have to balance supply and demand all the time to stay in balance. If you don’t, things trip and you have to start over.”

Since the amount of demand at the time was largely unknown, the trick would be to start small and work up from there until, eventually, reconnecting to the larger grid and turning control back over to MISO. The challenge was the Calcasieu plant is a combustion turbine capable of producing more than 150 MW of power. Emergency minimum output from that plant is about 20 MW. Anything less than that and the plant will trip off-line. For a town that had been without power for 13 days, the biggest challenge was finding customers who could accept at least 20 MW of power, to avoid exporting any power onto Cleco’s damaged system.

On the morning of Sept. 9, the Calcasieu plant began slowly feeding power into Lake Charles and delivering it to a few customers at first and then a few more over the next several days. The plant continued to operate as if it were in an island, “but we had the security blanket of that one line to help absorb small imbalances in load and generation,” Long said.

Part of the success of the re-energization of Lake Charles was teamwork with customers. It was important to know which of them would be drawing how much power and when. Up to that point, the Lake Charles load was only for commercial and residential customers.

Then, the utility brought a second plant, the Lake Charles power station, back on-line, which made it possible to begin adding some of the many high-demand industrial customers in the area. “Some of them were like, ‘Yeah, we’re ready to go,’ then they weren’t. And some were like, ‘We’re not ready to go, then they were.’ We were trying to just get enough flow to be stable,” Long recalled.

Entergy’s industrial account executives were working one-on-one with petroleum refineries, chemical manufacturers, major pipelines, liquefied natural gas exporters and other large-load customers that make up the enormous industrial complex that spans the Gulf Coast region.

As restoration continued, additional transmission lines into Lake Charles were restored, along with the distribution lines to deliver the power they carried. “Once we got three transmission lines energized, we started feeling more confident that we could lose one and not lose control while managing the interchange between Lake Charles and the outside world,” Long said.

Maintaining Load Balance

All this was still without the dispatching and load control normally provided by MISO. “Our transmission control center staff was in storm mode 24/7 during this restoration. It became their job to carefully watch their screens and remotely but manually dial the generators’ output up and down, much like we did it 100 years ago,” Long noted.

In addition, the Entergy load-balancing authority group within Entergy’s system planning organization worked closely with the transmission control center to keep things on an even keel until MISO was able get involved. Keeping the load balanced was a constant, tedious challenge. “You’re trying to wait until you get enough load so that you never drop below the minimum of whatever generators you’ve got on, but you want room to grow so you can add generation to get things closer and closer to normal,” Long said.

Eventually, structure by structure, line by line and substation by substation, the Entergy T&D system was rebuilt and reenergized. Entergy employees, mutual-assistance workers and contractors made up the largest workforce mobilization in the utility’s history. A team of at least 26,000 men and women from 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada restored service after one week to 80% of those who had lost power, 86% after two weeks and 94% after three weeks. By the end of week four, 99% of customers were back on-line.

Practice Makes A Difference

While getting the lights back on is the objective that gets the most public attention, the most important measure for Entergy employees and contractors is their health and safety. “We always want folks to go back home in the same good health in which they arrived and that includes our pandemic protocols, too,” said Eliecer Viamontes, vice president of utility distribution operations. “We never stop looking for ways to improve our processes, procedures, equipment and, most importantly, our mindset to make this dangerous work safer for those who bravely do it.”

Through it all, the Entergy team had a well-practiced plan, worked the plan, and came out stronger and more experienced after Hurricane Laura. The utility will continue to build on this experience in upcoming hurricane seasons. TDW

DAVID LEWIS is a senior communications specialist with ���ϳԹ���.��This article was originally published in the July 2021 issue of����magazine.

NEW ORLEANS – ���ϳԹ��� and the Entergy Charitable Foundation awarded $4 million in contributions to nonprofit organizations during the fourth quarter of 2020, bringing total shareholder-funded contributions for the year to $18.9 million.

Entergy shareholders helped power stronger, healthier communities in 2020 through major initiatives including COVID-19 pandemic relief giving, which totaled more than $3.3 million, and hurricane/disaster relief giving, which totaled more than $1.1 million.

“Our focus for 2020 was to create sustainable value for our communities amidst incredible uncertainty,” said Patty Riddlebarger, vice president of corporate social responsibility for ���ϳԹ���. “The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with a record-breaking storm season, economic recession, social unrest and political upheaval presented formidable challenges. But in each instance, these challenges brought out the best in our nonprofit partners and employees as they teamed up to help our communities face them head on.”

The company’s COVID-related contributions addressed the economic hardships of most vulnerable populations – low-wage working families, low-income older adults and people with disabilities. With help from community partners, Entergy provided emergency cash grants for hospitality workers, rental assistance, and food and utility payment assistance for low-income customers. Working with the American Red Cross, United Way and other nonprofit organizations, the company helped provide disaster relief and recovery assistance for residents impacted by seven named storms that impacted the Entergy service territory 2020.

Additional grants provided funding and support for broad-based initiatives ranging from education and workforce development, to poverty solutions, the arts and community improvement initiatives in regions served by Entergy in Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New York and Texas. All funding is provided by shareholder contributions and does not impact customer bills.

Significant fourth-quarter contributions include:

• $482,000 grant to the Career and Technical Education Division of the Arkansas Department of Education to provide high school students across Arkansas with the ability to virtually access vocational and technical training courses that lead to certifications and industry-recognized credentials for high demand careers.
• $160,000 grant to the Foundation for Southeast Texas to provide disaster recovery assistance to communities impacted by Hurricane Laura.
• $160,000 grant to Adopt-A-Charger program for electric vehicle charging stations and infrastructure in Arkansas.
• A $150,000 grant to the United Way Entergy Hands on Volunteer Center in New Orleans to power volunteers across a seven-parish region in Southeast Louisiana.
• A $100,000 grant to Restore the Earth Foundation for reforestation greenhouse emission reduction projects in Louisiana.

In addition to awarding grants, Entergy employees and retirees engaged in 95,000 hours of volunteer service in 2020, valued at approximately $3.4 million, to a variety of charitable causes.

For more information about the Entergy Charitable Foundation grants, including application, deadline and eligibility details, visit the Entergy website.

About ���ϳԹ���

For more than 100 years, Entergy has powered life in our communities through strategic philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy’s corporate social responsibility initiatives help create and sustain thriving communities, position the company for sustainable growth and are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our top CSR priorities are education/workforce development, poverty solutions/social services and environmental programs.

���ϳԹ��� (NYSE: ETR) is an integrated energy company engaged in electric power production, transmission and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 3 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy owns and operates one of the cleanest large-scale U.S. power generating fleets with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, Entergy has annual revenues of $10 billion and more than 13,000 employees. Learn more at entergy.com and follow on social media.

-30-

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) recently awarded ���ϳԹ��� five Emergency Response Awards, including recovery awards for Hurricane Laura and severe thunderstorms last April, and assistance awards for hurricanes Sally, Isaias and Hanna.��Entergy is the only electric company in the country to have been recognized each year by EEI since it began the awards program.

“In the midst of a global pandemic, the South suffered Easter storms and a subsequent hurricane season that disrupted lives and caused catastrophic damages like we haven’t seen in decades,” said Entergy Arkansas President and CEO Laura Landreaux. “We were proud to step up as part of the overall company response in a challenging year to quickly restore power to as many customers as safely possible when necessary.”

Presented to EEI member companies, Emergency Response Awards recognize recovery and assistance efforts of electric companies following service disruptions caused by extreme weather or other natural events. The winners were chosen by a panel of judges following an international nomination process, and the awards were presented during EEI’s virtual Winter Board and Chief Executives Meeting.

Severe thunderstorms Easter weekend caused widespread damage statewide and interrupted service to 128,000 customers. In late August the remnants of Hurricane Laura caused another 48,000 outages in Entergy Arkansas’ service territory. While attending to outages in Arkansas, crews were also mobilized to serve sister operating companies in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana,all of which suffered damages of historic proportions.

“Entergy Arkansas linemen and crews are an elite group of skilled pros who are selfless and prepared to serve our customers in often harrowing situations,” Landreaux said, “and we’ll be ready the next time we’re called upon – in our service area or around the country.”

EEI President Tom Kuhn said, “Over the past year, many of our nation’s electric companies and their customers have endured historic storms and wildfires and other significant weather-related events. Working around the clock to restore power safely and quickly to customers and deploying mutual assistance crews to support impacted companies are hallmarks of the electric power industry. When disasters strike, impacted and neighboring electric companies are quick to assess damage and to respond and assist with restoration.

“I congratulate and applaud Entergy for demonstrating continued commitment to the customers and to the communities it serves,” Kuhn said. “In the midst of a global pandemic and often in the most hazardous of conditions, Entergy and its frontline employees worked around-the-clock to restore service safely and quickly. Entergy is exceptionally deserving of this prestigious award.”

The awards recognize restoration efforts made by all the corporation’s operating companies, including Entergy Arkansas, Entergy Louisiana, Entergy Mississippi, Entergy Texas and Entergy New Orleans.

“My thanks to our employees and mutual assistance partners for their commitment in response to an unprecedented year of storms during the pandemic,” said Willie Wilson, Entergy’s system storm incident commander. “I am grateful for those who stepped up to ensure we were able to restore power while remaining focused on the safety and health of our stakeholders, including our employees, customers and communities.”

ABOUT ENTERGY ARKANSAS

Entergy Arkansas provides electricity to approximately 715,000 customers in 63 counties. Entergy Arkansas is a subsidiary of ���ϳԹ��� (NYSE: ETR), an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. ���ϳԹ��� (NYSE: ETR) is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.9 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of $11 billion and approximately 13,600 employees.

ABOUT��EDISON ELECTRIC INSTITUTE

EEI is the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies. Members provide electricity for more than 220 million Americans, and operate in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. As a whole, the electric power industry supports more than 7 million jobs in communities across the United States. In addition to its U.S. members, EEI has more than 65 international electric companies, with operations in more than 90 countries, as International Members, and hundreds of industry suppliers and related organizations as Associate Members.

-30-

The Entergy Nuclear Employee Spotlight recognizes team members exhibiting a safe working culture, passion for teamwork, an always learning attitude, upholding integrity, and being respectful.��

Pitre, who joined Entergy in 2009, has been based at the West-Cal Arena and Events Center near Lake Charles, Louisiana for several weeks. It was one of the staging sites for the trucks, housing, equipment and food service needed as Entergy and contractor teams rebuilt the southwest Louisiana transmission system destroyed by the storm.��

Typically, Pitre would be involved in planning security exercises at Waterford 3, but the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic halted that activity, so he stepped forward for hurricane relief. “I’m also from that area, Houma, Louisiana, so I take it personally,” he noted.

At the arena, Pitre shadowed the site managers and quickly got up to speed. He helped make the site layout more efficient, re-routed traffic patterns, coordinated lodging and assisted with sign placement.��

“As we built a rapport with team members, they would tell us the problems they were experiencing,” he said, adding that he helped organize the delivery of water and ice to groups from out of state that were not used to the Louisiana heat – a critical safety issue.

The assignments kept coming. “Brendan is a tremendous asset. When we needed tents, Brendan found a solution on his own by going to various stores in the area and coordinated with a site teammate.” said��J.R. Haley, usually the director of Entergy’s MaxGen IT project, yet, served as a temporary site staging manager.

COVID-19 precautions were also part of the job. “We had two COVID checkpoints at the entrance of each building. Each checkpoint had masks, temperature scanners and hand sanitizer. We probably went through 10,000 masks,” Pitre said.

For more information about Entergy’s restoration efforts following Hurricane Laura, visit entergy.com/hurricanelaura.

Laura left an unprecedented path of destruction, causing more than 900,000 Entergy customers to lose power. Some of them remained in the dark for as long as 35 days, as a workforce of at least 26,000 men and women from 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada rebuilt the electric system that Mother Nature had torn apart.

The storm came fast on the heels of another hurricane in the Gulf, Marco, making it difficult for planners and forecasters to predict Laura’s exact track and intensity.

“Early the morning of August 27, I woke up to the news that Hurricane Laura had slammed into our service territory, and I immediately knew we would be facing a technical trial and a physical marathon to get everyone’s power back on,” said Jim Schott, vice president of transmission for Entergy.

HISTORICAL PROPORTIONS

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted in May that the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, which officially runs June 1 through November 30, was going to be an especially active and tumultuous one. NOAA predicted that there would be 13-19 named storms (12 is average) and 6-10 hurricanes. As EP goes to press, there have been 30 named storms, 11 of which struck the U.S. mainland this season, eclipsing the nine storms that hit in 1916.

PREPARING FOR LAURA

Encountering favorable conditions for tropical development between Cuba and Louisiana, Laura quickly gained strength. Our emergency planners, employees, and customers knew days in advance we were facing a serious threat. With every mile Laura traveled across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the forecast became more ominous. Entergy’s well-rehearsed storm plan calls for placing workers, equipment, and materials close enough to the expected destruction to respond quickly, but far enough away to avoid damage themselves while they safely ride out the storm. As outside help from mutual assistance partners and contractors was staging, the nearly 3,000 Entergy employees in the path of the storm implemented their personal emergency plans and prepared to respond once the storm cleared and it was safe to do so.

More than 1,400 transmission structures were destroyed by Hurricane Laura, requiring a complete rebuild of the energy grid in the worst-hit areas.

WORSE THAN EXPECTED

We were prepared for a major event, but this storm exceeded all expectations. Laura made landfall at Cameron, Louisiana, as a high-end Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. By the time the storm subsided, nearly 14,000 of our distribution poles and more than 1,400 transmission structures would be destroyed. Four Entergy power plants also were damaged and in need of repairs.

The region of southwest Louisiana in and around Lake Charles took the brunt of the storm’s force, while southeast Texas, served by Entergy Texas, sustained extensive damage that caused 109,000 customer outages. Because of the storm’s historic intensity, it continued through northern Louisiana and stubbornly held on as a tropical storm deep into Arkansas. As a result, a day after Laura made landfall, nearly 48,000 Entergy Arkansas customers also lost power. Tropical storm-related power outages in Arkansas are rare, to say the least, but Laura’s sustained intensity caused a peak of nearly one million customer outages for the electric companies, public power utilities, and electric cooperatives in her path throughout Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

“In southwest Louisiana, more than 20 percent of the existing transmission line structures had been destroyed and, ultimately, would be replaced.”

REBUILDING THE TRANSMISSION SYSTEM WHILE BALANCING SUPPLY AND DEMAND

While replacing 14,000 distribution poles and 30,000 spans of wire is no small chore, the most urgent task was securing the electric transmission system that serves southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana. This area includes a uniquely dense population of large industrial customers and critical energy infrastructure.

The storm took out seven of nine transmission ties into Texas. Southwest Louisiana was isolated completely from the system, with all nine transmission lines into that region severed. In total, about 300 substations had been knocked out of service, with more than 1,400 transmission structures destroyed and another 450 damaged. In southwest Louisiana, more than 20 percent of the existing transmission line structures had been destroyed and, ultimately, would be replaced.

“This is not a restoration,” said Entergy Louisiana President and CEO Phillip May at the time. “It’s almost a complete rebuild of our transmission and distribution system that serves Calcasieu and Cameron parishes.”

In the clearest sign yet of how badly the transmission system was damaged, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO), Entergy’s reliability coordinator, directed us to shed load in portions of Texas that were not affected by the storm. Laura was still wending her way through Louisiana when MISO directed the periodic outages.

“Shedding load protects the stability of the bulk electric system and helps prevent further outages,” Schott explained. “By the time the hurricane had passed through the region, we understood there was historic damage to our system, as well as our neighbors’ systems. We knew it would require an extended time to rebuild, leaving the region’s grid highly insecure while those repairs were made. The planning and operations effort would need to sequence the start-up of isolated areas, and mobilize engineering, project management, construction, supply, and logistics services to safely execute a massive rebuild plan.”

Imagine facing this: one unstable region in southeast Texas and one isolated region in southwest Louisiana, both requiring active planning, operations coordination, and risk management with MISO, other electric companies, and customers while also managing load-shed planning and black-start coordination issues. Both regions required complex sequencing of generation and regional load, with the added complexity of large industrial loads and their associated large-motor start requirements, advanced power quality needs, and reliability requirements.

While power was restored to all Texas customers within seven days, it would take 13 days, until Sept. 9, for the first lights in southwest Louisiana to come on. That was the day the first transmission tie into the region from Cleco and the Eastern Interconnection was established.

Cleco also had been devastated by Laura, and a single tie was insufficient to serve the entire region. This first tie, coupled with a path to the Calcasieu generating plant, allowed for Entergy to start that generator and begin bringing on customers.

Hurricane Laura took out seven of nine transmission ties into Texas, while all nine transmission lines into southwest Louisiana were severed.

A LONG HISTORY OF RESPONDING TO HISTORIC STORMS

Damage caused by Laura presented challenges Entergy had not seen before—and we have seen a lot. Entergy is the only electric company in the nation to receive an EEI Emergency Response Award every year offered, receiving more than 30 awards since 1998 for our restoration and mutual assistance work. “Mutual assistance from our industry partners, who provided both labor and material, was critical. Once again, the performance of our industry coming together proved the remarkable capability, resiliency, and character of this industry,” Schott said.

Given the severity and scale of the damage, Entergy modified its restoration organizational structure to resemble a large-scale capital project effort. This was needed to align resources effectively and to streamline stakeholder engagement. For example, logistics and material management teams established 14 temporary laydown yards focused on voltage level and material movement to the field, minimizing delivery times.

While mission success rightly can be attributed to good planning and hard work, it’s also important to have the right tools for the job. In swampy southwest Louisiana, we deployed K-MAX helicopters to quickly move mangled structures out of the way and new ones into place. Crews also utilized tracked marsh buggies, barge-mounted cranes, and air boats to access some of the hard-to-reach areas. In other parts of our service territory where damage was less severe, progress was swift.

With the help of the vast army of mutual assistance workers from around the country, we restored service to 80 percent of those who had lost power by end of week one, 86 percent after two weeks, 94 percent after three, and by the end of week four, 99 percent of customers were back online. We announced on September 30—35 days after landfall of Hurricane Laura—that all customers who could receive power had been restored. “I could not be more proud of our team’s response to this natural disaster,” said Willie Wilson, vice president of power plant operations for Entergy, who served as incident commander for Hurricane Laura recovery. “The employees, the contractors, the mutual assistance workers from other utility companies—they all worked in concert and with tremendous heart to take care of the people whose lives were upended by this historic storm.”

Entergy deployed K-MAX helicopters to quickly move mangled structures out of the way and new ones into place.

RESTORING POWER IN A PANDEMIC

In addition to facing more damage than we had ever experienced, including from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Entergy was responding to Laura in the middle of a global pandemic. Wisely, the industry had addressed the matter at the national level prior to storm season with a set of safety protocols developed by the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), and Entergy had established a dual-threat process to prepare.

Crews came with their own pandemic personal protective equipment (PPE) and maintained their own supplies of PPE to offset potential scarcity. Planners managed work to keep crews together in pods to minimize potential exposure and allow for contact tracing. All restoration partners implemented personnel screening to track and monitor cases and to mitigate spread. Large-scale workspace gatherings related to safety onboarding, equipment staging, and dining were replaced with smaller and safer alternatives. Staging centers were cut to half capacity. Entergy engaged third-party health and safety groups to assist with COVID-19 coaching at the staging, lodging, and work sites.

Housing and feeding the crews were special challenges. Although restoration workers normally sleep in hotels in the communities they are working to restore, the damage caused by Laura rendered most hotels uninhabitable. With beds in short supply, restoration workers slept in bunk trailers, tents, and even two floating hotels. Where normally we would depend on local caterers and restaurants to feed workers in group settings, Hurricane Laura required the mobilization of major catering vendors from across the region to serve as many as 45,000 to-go meals each day for several weeks.

Crews worked tirelessly to restore power for impacted customers and communities.

A THIRST FOR INFORMATION

Lineworkers and vegetation crews cleared debris and began replacing components of the energy grid, while company representatives were busy communicating with customers, assuring them that a monumental effort had been launched on their behalf, and also setting expectations that it could be weeks before all who could accept power would be re-energized.

Affected customers were, understandably, hungry for information. We told the restoration story through multiple channels, including:

• 801 proactive social media posts, with a reach of more than 20 million;
• 138 posts on Entergy’s online Storm Center, read by 610,000 visitors;
• Entergy’s storm response website dedicated exclusively to Hurricane Laura, which received more than 100,000 visits;
• 20 news releases issued to the news media, supported by dozens of interviews and accommodations for information and updates;
• 2,120 safety-approved still photos and video clips, 40 interviews, and 21 edited videos created by staff and freelance help shared on social media; and��
• 5.9 million direct messages delivered to our customers by phone call, text message, or email.

In addition, we partnered closely with EEI, which shared updates through its vast communications network. We also engaged with the ESCC to ensure unity of effort and unity of message among all segments of the electric power industry and our government partners.

Nearly 3,000 Entergy employees live in the path of Hurricane Laura. Of them, almost 650 reported some level of damage to their homes. As they juggled their own power outages and professional responsibilities, employees were kept up to speed through online internal communications vehicles, including an electronic newsletter, Facebook Workplace, emails, and weekly video messages from Entergy Chairman and CEO Leo Denault.

While all these communications were delivering updates to our residential and commercial customers, Entergy’s industrial account executives were working one-on-one with petroleum refineries, chemical manufacturers, major pipelines, liquefied natural gas exporters, and other large-load customers that make up the enormous industrial complex that spans the Gulf Coast region. These customers were more than receivers of power in this ordeal; they were active partners in the restoration process. We needed them to receive power as it was added to the energy grid. They needed electricity, but many had specific ramp-up and power-quality requirements. Keeping load and generation in balance required constant communication and coordination by electrical experts on both sides.

Crews from Entergy and mutual assistance partners utilized a wide range of specialized equipment, including helicopters and air boats, to restore power for customers after Hurricane Laura.

LOOKING BACK

What means the most to the Entergy team working on the restoration is satisfied customers in the midst of an extended power outage. Support from all parts of the community was overwhelming. Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter said: “I can’t tell you how proud I am of our city employees and Entergy, our electric utility, for moving mountains to make these things happen…. I think the government can take a page out of Entergy’s book sometimes.”

“Hats off to Entergy for their great work bringing power back to Texans affected by Hurricane Laura,” commented Texas State Senator Robert Nichols. “We truly appreciate their hard work and dedication to serving East Texas.”

There were many hundreds of social media posts from customers that sounded much like this one: “Y’all are amazing and may God bless you all!!!! Thank you for your commitment to serving your customers!!”

“At Entergy, ‘We Power Life.’ On a normal day, it’s a catchy tagline. But during and after Hurricane Laura, it was profoundly appropriate,” said Eliecer Viamontes, vice president of utility distribution operations. “It’s humbling and gratifying to be reminded how much our customers depend every minute of every day on the service we provide. Getting things back to normal was a gargantuan task, but you do what it takes to help rebuild the communities we serve. People are depending on us.”

A workforce of at least 26,000 men and women from 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada was dedicated to the Hurricane Laura response.

LESSONS LEARNED

Every storm presents opportunities to learn in order to respond better to the next one. Lessons learned from Hurricane Laura included: the need to review and refine black-start processes; an affirmation of the value of having detailed load-shed plans when faced with a catastrophic loss of transmission and generation; and a constant need for faster damage assessment by leveraging technology.

NOT AGAIN

Just when it appeared that hurricane season might be winding down, Hurricane Delta made its way into the Gulf with its eye again squarely on the Louisiana coastline.

Incredibly, the storm made landfall just 13 miles to the east of where Laura came ashore. It would strike Louisiana as a high-end Category 2 storm on October 9, just six weeks after Laura devastated the area. Delta’s wrath knocked out power to more than 850,000 Entergy customers, many of whom still were rebuilding their lives after Laura.

Thankfully, the grid rebuilt just a month prior held up well and complete restoration took less than a week. Most important, all the new transmission structures rebuilt after Laura were undamaged. Also, we installed Class 1 distribution poles in and around Lake Charles after Laura, resulting in only one-tenth the pole damage in Delta. The upgrades and resilience measures brought an unwanted affirmation of the success of our swift planning and execution in the wake of Laura.

And when Hurricane Zeta made landfall on October 28, Entergy and the entire industry responded safely and swiftly once again.��

One improves by learning from what could have gone better. But the most gratifying lessons learned are those that affirm you know what you’re doing. As one Entergy restoration team member stated, “We got this. It’s what we do.” In a year that the entire world, it seems, has been in social, economic, political, and medical pandemonium, nature chose to unleash an extra dose of challenges on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

The most important measure is safety. “We always want folks to go back home in the same good health in which they arrived,” said Viamontes. “We never stop looking for ways to improve our processes, procedures, equipment, and, most important, mindset, to make this dangerous work safer for those who bravely do it.”

Through it all, the Entergy team had a well-practiced plan, worked the plan, and came out stronger and more experienced, if not a bit winded—and more than ready for the arrival of November 30, the official end of hurricane season.

“At Entergy, ‘We Power Life.’ On a normal day, it’s a catchy tagline. But during and after Hurricane Laura, it was profoundly appropriate.” –Eliecer Viamontes, vice president of utility distribution operations

David Lewis is a senior communications specialist at Entergy. This article was originally published in the November/December 2020 issue of�� magazine.

These funds are a part of the previously announced $360,000 contribution to help the community rebuild following Hurricanes Laura and Delta. In addition to the $160,000 to local organizations, the company allocated $200,000 from an American Red Cross Disaster Responder Partnership to directly aid communities affected by Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

“The Gulf Coast endured an unprecedented hurricane season this year, and our communities were hit by two back-to-back hurricanes that caused significant damage across southeast Texas,” said Sallie Rainer, president and CEO of Entergy Texas. “I can’t thank our customers and communities enough for their support of our crews working on the front lines restoring power. Just as we were there for our communities immediately following the storms, we’re going to be a part of the rebuilding effort.”

To distribute the funds, Entergy turned to the Foundation for Southeast Texas, a nonprofit, public charity that accepts funds from donors, manages them and distributes them to nonprofits in the local community.

Local organizations receiving funding include:

• Orange County Disaster Rebuild, $62,500
• Jefferson County Long-Term Recovery, $50,000
• Catholic Charities, $10,000
• Southeast Texas Food Bank, $10,000
• Community Care Prayer Outreach, $5,000
• Salvation Army Orange, $5,000
• United Christian Care Center Vidor, $5,000
• United Board of Missions, $5,000
• Christian Care Center, $2,500
• Christian Loving Care, $2,500
• Hardin County Strong, $2,500

��“This has been a devastating hurricane season with our area being hit by not just one, but two major hurricanes,” said Mellie Bevilacqua, executive director of the Foundation for Southeast Texas. “We’re proud to partner with Entergy Texas to distribute these funds to local organizations who are directly involved in the hurricane relief effort in southeast Texas.”

About Entergy Texas

Entergy Texas, Inc. provides electricity to approximately 461,000 customers in 27 counties. ���ϳԹ��� is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.9 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of $11 billion and approximately 13,600 employees.

Things that come in threes are typically better, funnier or more dramatic, but the “Rule of Three” took a nasty turn this year, with Hurricanes Laura, Delta and Zeta lashing Louisiana in rapid succession.

It takes a minimum of three to make a pattern or greater impression, and examples can be found in many things, from art and religion to marketing and science. And this year, nature made quite an impact with the three hurricanes. Lake Charles took a direct hit in late August from Category 4 Laura, which decimated the grid as it destroyed property and took lives, and Delta and Zeta came through in October to pummel the state again.

However, one crew out of Arkansas has had quite an effect over the course of the three storms, working 16-hour days to repair, rebuild and restore power safely to those in Louisiana able to receive it. Michael Mixon estimates his crew of 10 from Pike Electric out of Texarkana, Arkansas, have spent about 10 weeks in Louisiana for Entergy so far this season.

“In nearly 25 years in the field, I haven’t worked the same area three times in one year,” said Mixon. “We normally work on grid maintenance for our local cooperative, but we are always ready to support restoration efforts outside our service area when needed. Usually we work in Florida, but this has been an unusually rough hurricane season that hit hard.”

The crew was positioned in New Orleans with four bucket trucks and two line trucks hours before Hurricane Zeta hit the coast as a Category 2 – just 1 mph shy of a Category 3 storm – the last week of October. They were part of restoration, which caused outages for 481,000 Louisiana customers.

While ���ϳԹ���’s operating companies in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana are mobilized to assist in their service territories, there is often the need for more help. Contractors like Pike Electric are part of a mutual-assistance agreement where utility crews are moved around the country to help restore power following disasters. Mixon’s crew and others from Pike were positioned early and nearby in preparation for the last of five named hurricanes to hit the Gulf Coast of Louisiana, with three dealing majors blows to the transmission and distribution lines and thousands of power poles.

With a current workforce of nearly 6,100, including Entergy employees and help from other electric companies and contractors, Entergy shared for all who are able to receive it within the coming week – focusing on essential services and getting the greatest number of customers online at a time – with many coming online sooner.

��

NEW ORLEANS – During the first three quarters of 2020, the Entergy Charitable Foundation has helped power stronger, healthier communities by awarding $11.3 million to more than 1,200 nonprofit organizations located across Entergy’s service area of Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Michigan and New York.

���ϳԹ��� (NYSE: ETR)��shareholders powered communities during the third quarter of 2020 with more than $2.7 million in grants to fund educational programs, economic development and help families and communities recover from hurricanes Laura and Delta.

“This year has been a record year for natural disasters with back-to-back hurricanes impacting our customers in Texas and Louisiana,” said Patty Riddlebarger, Entergy’s vice president of corporate social responsibility. “Responding to these disasters amidst a pandemic has placed additional strain on our nonprofit partners. We are proud to do our part to help our partners provide critical services for those who are most vulnerable.”

Significant contributions or commitments made during the third quarter included:

• $200,000 to the Community Foundation for Southwest Louisiana for disaster relief services for hurricanes Laura and Delta.
• $200,000 to the American Red Cross for disaster relief services for hurricanes Laura and Delta.
• $180,000 to the Community Foundation of Southeast Texas for disaster relief services for hurricanes Laura and Delta.
• $100,000 to the United Way of Southwest Louisiana disaster relief services for hurricanes Laura and Delta.
• $80,000 to Greater New Orleans, Inc. to support economic development efforts in the greater New Orleans region.
• $78,000 in matching educational grants to high schools, colleges and universities.
• $70,000 to the Louisiana State University Foundation to support electrical and computer engineering programs.

For more information about the Entergy Charitable Foundation grants, including application, deadline and eligibility details, visit the Entergy website.

About ���ϳԹ���
For more than 100 years, Entergy has powered life in our communities through strategic philanthropy, volunteerism and advocacy. Entergy’s corporate social responsibility initiatives help create and sustain thriving communities, position the company for sustainable growth and are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our top CSR priorities are education/workforce development, poverty solutions/social services and environmental programs. Each year, Entergy contributes $16-18 million in shareholder-funded grants to more than 2,000 nonprofit organizations in the communities where we operate. In addition, our employees volunteer approximately 115,000 hours in those communities, valued at a $3.75 million economic impact. Learn more about Entergy’s commitment to powering the lives of the communities we serve at entergy.com/community.

���ϳԹ��� (NYSE: ETR) is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including 8,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.9 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of $11 billion and approximately 13,600 employees.

-30-

entergy.com
Twitter:
Facebook: