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Insights > Entergy Continuing Barry Restoration Efforts
Entergy Continuing Barry Restoration Efforts
07/13/2019
Barry, which briefly became a Category 1 hurricane Saturday before being downgraded to a tropical storm, continues to crawl across Louisiana, delivering heavy rains, high winds, coastal flooding and power outages. As of 6:30 p.m. Saturday, approximately 63,500 customers were without power across the state.
A storm team of approximately 3,400 is continuing damage assessments and restoration where it is safe to do so but are facing challenges due to flooding, impassable roadways and high winds preventing the use of bucket trucks in some of the hardest hit locations. For their safety, crews cannot operate bucket trucks when winds are 30 mph or higher.
We know you want information about your outage.
- As soon as it is safe to do so, we begin assessing damage and restoring power. This process could take several days depending on the severity of the storm’s impact.
- In areas where it is safe, our damage assessment teams will patrol the lines and view the facilities to determine how much the storm damaged our electrical system.
- Damage assessments provide details that help us know what we need to do to restore your service and to let you know how long it may take.
Here’s how we approach things at this stage.
- Essential services such as hospitals, nursing homes, fire and police departments, and water systems are at the head of the restoration list, along with our equipment that supplies electricity to large numbers of customers.
- Then we will concentrate our resources on getting the greatest number customers back the fastest.
- We can’t use our bucket trucks until sustained winds are less than 30 mph. In some instances, we can begin restoring service to customers by closing circuit breakers, rerouting power and other actions that don’t require the use of bucket trucks.
- Road and flood-gate closures, significant flooding and other accessibility challenges due to the storm will affect our ability reach some areas of our territory and could delay restoration in those communities.
While each storm is different, we continue implementing a detailed plan that has worked well for us during past storm events. Our restoration process is a team effort.
- Restoration involves not only workers from our area but also crews from other parts of the four states we serve, other utility companies and contractors.
- Repairs begin with major lines to the substations, then to the lines and equipment serving the largest number of customers.
- Service lines to individual homes and businesses will be restored last because fewer customers are involved, and in the case of fewer outages spread over larger areas, it often takes more time to get power back on for them.
Here’s some of what we will be doing to restore your power safely and quickly after the storm.
- The extra workers coming to help us will gather at staging sites to prepare to restore service.
- You may see trucks, other vehicles and workers lined up while we process them into our system, taking inventory of equipment and personnel and giving a complete safety orientation.
