Power could be back on for the vast majority of the greater Baton Rouge area by Sept. 8, Entergy officials said Thursday while giving an update on the restoration process for Louisiana's mass power outages following Hurricane Ida.
“Now there will be pockets of customers that’s extended,” Philip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO, said. “But we’re excited to be able to provide that guidance to our customers to have the lights back on.”
The power utility also expects to complete its assessment of the damage to its infrastructure caused by the Category 4 storm Thursday, four days after Ida made landfall.
After that, Entergy said it will be able to provide predictions for bringing back power across the state. While power slowly started to flicker back on around New Orleans Wednesday — including spots in New Orleans East and the French Quarter — Entergy officials have warned before that the hardest-hit areas by the storm may be without power for weeks.
On Wednesday, Entergy said it knew 5,000 poles and 5,200 transmissions were damaged in the storm. Beyond assessment, crews are focused on restoring power to critical infrastructure. That also includes hotels, with more than 20,000 linemen in the state to help with recovery needing lodging.
We’re making progress! After Hurricane #Ida brought destructive winds to the area on Sunday, we’ve restored power to parts of Uptown, Midtown, the CBD, additional neighborhoods in the East and the Carrollton area. Stay updated on our Storm Center: https://t.co/1vcixNz727 pic.twitter.com/Egtcz8Prgk
— Entergy New Orleans (@EntergyNOLA) September 2, 2021
Some of the restored infrastructure include:
- Children’s Hospital
- Tulane's teaching hospital
- Tulane University Medical Center
- University Medical Center New Orleans
- University Hospital
- Several water plants
The Caesars Superdome also had power restored so it could be used as a shelter.
Entergy did not address why its outage map shows some areas having restored power when that is not the case. It did say that there is often a lag between power being restored and that showing up on the map.
At the peak, about 904,000 customers in Louisiana were without power. Entergy said it’s restored power to about 137,000 customers. On Thursday morning, about 60 percent of Entergy’s customers in the state were without power. In New Orleans, about 88 percent of customers were waiting for their power to come back.
In the Bayou region, where Ida made landfall and did the worst of its damage, May said the company did not have a count of the customers affected by the outages. A “lengthy restoration” effort could be in order, though, taking as long as three weeks due to extensive damage and access issues.
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