The major collapse of the power towers leaves New Orleans completely without electricity

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE): A large electric transmission tower has collapsed, leaving Orleans Parish completely without electricity.

A Jefferson parish official says a transmission tower that provides power to New Orleans and the east bank of the parish has collapsed into the river near Bridge City. According to the parish’s director of emergency management, cables wired across the Mississippi River are now in the water, but the darkness makes visibility difficult.

According to Entergy, the eight main transmission lines have fallen. Due to the weather, they cannot assess the damage. Entergy supplies security energy to the city’s sewer and water board, but there are significant impacts on the pumping stations.

A notice has been issued on boiling water for the entire east bank of Jefferson parish.

Nearly one million people were without electricity across the state as of 11 p.m. See the outage map here.

The New Orleans Board of Sanitation and Water provided the following statement:

As a city, we are currently experiencing the worst impacts of Hurricane Ida to date. Although we have lost all Entergy power, our equipment works quickly and decisively to compensate for this with our self-generated power sources, including turbines 4, 5 and 6 and EMD, as well as the located safety generators. at our drainage pumping stations. . Entergy energy loss is a major energy loss for our 60 Hz pumps and 25 Hz pumps that we feed through the frequency changers, but we use our self-generated energy sources to drain rainwater. and pumping drinking water into the city. Finally, this energy loss also affects our sewer pumping stations. Currently, there is no backup power to run any of those affected. We are evaluating how many of the 84 stations are affected, but the number can be very significant. We have worked to secure security energy from some of these stations and will mobilize these units when it is safe to cross the city. To avoid backing up wastewater, we have asked residents to limit water use at home, thus reducing the amount of wastewater we need to pump and treat. This is a situation of rapid and extremely fluid development. We will keep you updated as circumstances develop.

Entergy posted the following information:

• As a result of the catastrophic intensity of Hurricane Ida, the eight power lines that supply power to the New Orleans area are currently out of service. When it occurred, it caused a load imbalance in the area and caused the generation in the area to go offline.
• We are currently working to assess the damage and identify a way forward to restore energy, to those who may take it, to the area.
• We have provided backup generation to the New Orleans sewer and water board.
• Energy will not be restored this afternoon, but we will continue to work to resolve it.

Governor John Bel Edwards published the following:

We are in communication with Entergy and the city. Right now all we can do is take refuge in their place and when it is safe at first glance, they will begin to assess the damage. We don’t know how long power will be out. We will have a better idea when the damage assessments start in the morning. They have utility teams ready to assess the damage. Everyone needs to stay away from downed power lines.

Visit the Fox 8 Weather Authority Hurricane Center to track the storm in real time with VIPIR radar or download the Fox 8 Weather app to your mobile devices.

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