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Insights > Specialized equipment bolstering Entergy’s Louisiana restoration following Hurricane Francine
Specialized equipment bolstering Entergy’s Louisiana restoration following Hurricane Francine
09/13/2024
While the challenges of severe weather continue to pose a significant threat to the Gulf Coast region and our electrical system, modern solutions – including the use of innovative technology – are enabling our crews to better prepare for storms and improve restoration practices. Optimizing our approach to vegetation management and utilizing new technologies to assess our system have bolstered our preparation for and response to Hurricane Francine in Louisiana.
Vegetation management
Vegetation interference of power lines is one of the critical causes of interruption to electric service. Before Hurricane Francine’s impact, our crews and contractors proactively managed vegetation across our service area to protect our infrastructure.
In Louisiana, our teams patrolled more than 1,200 miles, trimmed overhanging tree limbs at approximately 1,400 locations and removed 342 trees that threatened electrical infrastructure.
Following Francine’s impact on Sept. 11, our crews began leveraging a specialized Black Hawk helicopter carrying a grapple hook to accelerate the restoration in Louisiana, which is used to displace trees impacting major transmission lines. The Black Hawk operators lower the grapple hook to secure a piece of vegetation, maneuver it off a de-energized transmission line and drop it into a safe zone. In some cases, there is no damage to the line, so crews immediately re-energize the line to flow power back into the interconnecting system that powers our communities.
Hurricane Francine damage assessments
While the new Airborne Damage Assessment Tool might not look as impressive as the hook-wielding Black Hawk helicopter at first glance, the potential of this small aircraft could significantly impact restoration efficiency. The AirDAT is a fixed-wing airplane equipped with Light Detection and Ranging sensors and artificial intelligence capabilities, which creates a three-dimensional map of the landscape by scanning the environment for damage from the sky.
The small aircraft identifies downed or leaning poles and other impacts to the transmission and distribution systems using artificial intelligence in near real-time. Ultimately, this technology significantly reduces restoration times and costs, allowing our crews on the ground to focus on further scouting and repairs to the system.
This is the first time Entergy has utilized AirDAT. If the pilot program demonstrates the positive results projected, the technology’s use may be expanded and implemented into our regular storm assessment strategy.
In addition to AirDAT, our restoration team continues to leverage specialized aircrafts like drones and helicopters to assess the electrical system. Aircraft operators work in coordination with crews on the ground, airboats and high-water vehicles to determine the exact causes of outages, which provides the data used to configure estimated restoration times.
Building back better
After making landfall last evening in Terrebonne Parish as a Category 2 hurricane, Francine moved through the Entergy service territory causing power outages throughout Louisiana and Mississippi. We began restoring power to customers as safely and quickly as possible after the storm passed. To prepare for future storms, resilience efforts are already underway in some parts of our service area, including Phase I of Entergy Louisiana’s Future Ready Resilience Plan.
If you are seeking information specific to your home or community, visit our Storm Center, a one-stop website for information on storm safety, preparation, restoration and regular updates specific to the storm. You can also access the View Outages map from here.
