The presidential caravan passes an area affected by Hurricane Ida as U.S. President Joe Biden begins his tour of hurricane-affected areas in Louisiana on September 3, 2021.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
More than a week after Hurricane Ida arrived in the region, hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in Louisiana and thousands in Mississippi were left without electricity as a new storm front set in. threatened restoration efforts.
According to PowerOutage.us, the numbers amounted to 495,384 customers in Louisiana and 4,656 in Mississippi without electricity as of Monday afternoon.
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood clock in southeast Louisiana on Monday afternoon.
Showers and storms were expected, with the strongest able to produce three inches of rain, or more, in a short period of time.
“Soil conditions are saturated or nearly saturated and heavy rainfall can quickly cause flooding,” the warning said.
Utility group Entergy said in a company statement Monday morning, “Storms could make restoration difficult in areas where conditions become unsafe for our restoration team to continue their work.”
Entergy also reported that 54% or 513,000 of its customers had already restored their energy, out of a total of 948,000 who lost electricity during Hurricane Ida.
About 902,000 of the affected Entergy customers were in Louisiana. As of Monday, the company said it had restored power to nearly half of those, or 467,000, including about 66 percent of those who suffer blackouts in New Orleans. In New Orleans, 69,000 Entergy customers ran out of electricity as of Monday morning.
As Gizmodo recently reported, Entergy has a history of protests against policies that would lead to increased use of renewable energy and investments in solar and energy storage systems in Louisiana. In addition to generating electricity from renewable and clean sources, these systems generally make the grid more stable where they are built and can help provide or restore energy after natural disasters.
Entergy wrote that amid new flood warnings in the region, “restoration times extend to Sept. 29” for the hardest-hit communities, such as St. Mary’s Parish. Charles and the parish of Terrebonne. It is a full month after Hurricane Ida hit land.