New Orleans raises the curfew when power returns to most of the city after Hurricane Ida left hundreds of thousands in the dark

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On Wednesday afternoon, 83% of the city’s energy was restored, with the goal of power supplier Entergy reaching 90% on Wednesday night, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said.

“We have every reason to believe that they will meet that deadline and meet that goal and we will continue to move forward,” Cantrell said.

After making landfall on Aug. 29 as a Category 4 hurricane near Louisiana’s Fourchon Harbor, Ida cut a deadly road through the region, destroying businesses and neighborhoods and leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity. It also claimed the lives of at least 26 people in Louisiana and two in Mississippi.
According to PowerOutage.us, as of early Thursday, more than 250,000 customers in Louisiana (including homes and businesses) were still in the dark.

“Our crews are suffering massive damage, especially in the hardest hit areas,” said John Hawkins, vice president of Distribution Operations for Entergy Louisiana. “We have assembled a storm team of about 26,000 people who will not stop until the last light is turned on again.”

Downtown New Orleans was slowly restored on Saturday.

Hurricane Ida caused extensive power outages in 2 states

Both Louisiana and Mississippi saw significant damage to their electrical infrastructure.

Entergy said 30,679 poles, 36,469 strands of wire and 5,959 transformers in both states were damaged by the storm. The number of damaged or destroyed sticks is higher than the combined number of those affected when Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta hit land.
It is true that some people in the most affected areas may not have energy until the end of the month.

Entergy, which serves more than a million customers in Louisiana, said Tuesday that power has been restored to nearly 60 percent of customers who lost electricity due to Ida, more than 535,000 out of 902,000.

“We have made significant progress in turning our customers’ lights on again despite all the challenges we face, ”Hawkins said.

New Orleans companies survived Katrina and Covid. Now they are fighting with Ida

Restoration is almost complete in the Baton Rouge region and the company hoped that “the vast majority of Orleans Parish customers who can safely accept power” will be back online on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, state officials urge people to be careful when using generators.

Four people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the Louisiana Department of Health, while another 141 people have been treated for inhalation of “deadly, odorless gas” since the hurricane.

The state health department advises people to “use your portable or backup generator safely” following the advice of the Office of the State Fire Commissioner, which includes placing generators at a minimum distance 20 meters from a residence.

CNN’s Rebekah Riess, Gregory Lemos, Theresa Waldrop and Melissa Alonso contributed to this report.

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