On the fourth day after New Orleans and its suburbs were submerged in darkness during Hurricane Ida, the heat index reached 106 degrees, people hurried as they plunged into the water and ice, and city officials were struggling to give residents a chance to escape on buses. with few promises about where they would go, other than that the air conditioning would work.
Throughout, executives with two subsidiaries of Entergy could not give residents, business owners, or city leaders even a rough idea of how long it would take until more than a fraction of the energy was restored.
Extended and near-total disruptions came after Entergy’s eight transmission lines in the region fell under the devastating winds of Ida, leaving the city cut off from its power supplies to the rest of the national network. . Power began to be restored early Wednesday when the company managed to lift the New Orleans power plant at Michoud and a Slidell transmission line that was recovered and reinforced with another west line before the Thursday morning.
Entergy New Orleans President and CEO Deanna Rodriguez is addressing a press conference on September 1, 2021 to give an update on Hurricane Ida recovery efforts.
But it was not clear how much power could be provided by these methods.
Although hospitals, some Sanitation and Water Board facilities, police and fire stations and Caesar’s Superdome had been electrified on Thursday morning, most residents remained powerless.
Entergy New Orleans president and CEO Deanna Rodriguez said in a media conference call Thursday morning that it would take at least until the end of the day before the company could even provide a general schedule that residents they could use it to decide if they wanted to warm up or leave.
Philip May, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, said Thursday after workers reviewed the lines and systems, the company would have a better sense of the situation.
Phillip May, President and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, illustrated here on February 19, 2019, in Lafayette, La.
“We’re still very much in the evaluation process,” May said. “In terms of being able to provide specific restore times, today it will be critical to get the data we need to provide restore times.”
At the time of the press, no further details had been provided to the public.
The lack of clear information left residents with little guidance on whether it would make more sense to try to resolve it a few more days without electricity, book hotels out of town for a few days, or prepare for an extended evacuation of weeks or more. .
“This has been my biggest frustration all along, what we get is public relations, spin … we don’t get information,” said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, the whose organization has long been critical of Entergy in New Orleans.
There were some signs of positive movement: Entergy New Orleans advanced by getting critical infrastructure on the network and coming out of generators, including the University Medical Center, Children’s Hospital and Tulane University Medical Center in New Orleans, the main Ochsner campus on the Jefferson parish line. Road and parish hospital from Sant Bernat to Arabi.
The neighborhoods of these places also regained food, as did the French Quarter and the central business district. It was unclear how many additional customers had their energy restored since Wednesday morning, when the company said about 11,500 out of 200,000 had work lights.
A line man with Pike Utility prepares lines to feed on Pope Street near the Jefferson and Orlean Parish Line main power line on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. (Photo by David Grunfeld staff, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)
The company also said it had made progress in recovering a transmission line that connects it to the St. Paul power plant. Charles, which has the capacity to supply approximately 75% of New Orleans needs. The New Orleans East power plant, on the other hand, can only provide about 10% of the energy normally used in the city.
New Orleans residents who refreshed Entergy’s interruption map, which changed little throughout the day Thursday, were also told it was unreliable and was between 45 minutes and an hour behind the reality. This is because Entergy, along with much of southeastern Louisiana, had problems with AT&T service.
Beyond the uncertainty about how long it may take to restore enough energy in the region in general, May and Rodriguez warned that it would take time for crews to repair the damage caused by Ida by preventing energy from reaching homes and businesses. individuals.
A text from Entergy New Orleans in the afternoon said the company had identified 837 poles and 288 transformers that needed repairing before electricity could be fully restored.
Among the lists of “priority” places for Entergy executives was the Superdome, which had its exterior lights shining Wednesday night. Rodriguez said the stadium was repowered because of its potential use as a shelter for residents.
But Mike Hoss, a spokesman for Superdome management firm ASM Global, said the company had not requested energy. There had also been no discussion about using the Superdome or the Smoothie King Center as shelters.
He suggested that power could be returned because the stadium is in the central business district and hotels were a priority to accommodate the 20,000 workers on the line that Entergy brings to the area to help them with catering.
Hoss said the Superdome would run at the “minimum power required” after the storm and noted that the LED lights on its outside use relatively little power.