Electric utility crews restore power to 63 percent of customers hit by Hurricane Laura
Working around the clock to restore power to people in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi impacted by the destructive rampage of Hurricane Laura last week, electric company crews have restored power to nearly 63 percent of customers as of Monday, but some 367,000 remain without power.
The progress, reported as of 8 a.m. EDT, saw those without power drop from a peak of nearly 989,000, according to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). The Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC) is coordinating efforts from government and industry as more than 29,000 workers from at least 29 states and Canada try to assess the damage and renew power. The impacted area is a disaster zone as a result of the Category 4 hurricane, though, rife with fallen trees, downed power lines, and scattered debris. Crews are doing their best to navigate it all while still dealing with the safety protocols demanded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In some communities, storm damage was so catastrophic that energy infrastructure needs to be completely rebuilt before power can be restored,” EEI said in a statement. “And, in these communities, we know there will be customers who are unable to receive power because of the damage to their homes or businesses.”
Among those hit were the service areas of Entergy, the Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO), and Cleco.
As of 8:30 a.m. on Aug. 31, Entergy was reporting that of the 616,000 power outages caused by Hurricane Laura, the company completed restoration for its customers in Mississippi and most in Arkansas who can take power. Outages in Texas will be restored in early September, the company said. Restoration continues for Energy’s Louisiana customers, but those in Lake Charles and Cameron and Calcasieu parishes face weeks without electrical power.
“Our restoration workers have restored 65 percent of the electrical power outages caused by Hurricane Laura,” Entergy said.
Based on current assessment reports, Laura’s damage to Entergy’s transmission system has already surpassed that of Hurricane Gustav that hit southeast Louisiana in 2008.
Also, as of 6 p.m. on Aug. 30, SWEPCO noted restoration of power to nearly 60 percent of its customers – 81,000 people in central and northwest Louisiana. Approximately 18,000 people in the Shreveport-Bossier area and 37,000 throughout central Louisiana remain without power. This is down from the peak of 136,000 customers throughout Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas that had been without power when the storm hit on Aug. 27.
“We’ve been working around the clock since Hurricane Laura hit at a scale that SWEPCO has not seen in recent history,” Drew Seidel, SWEPCO vice president of Distribution Region Operations, said. “We appreciate the continued patience of customers as SWEPCO employees and our nearly 3,000 out-of-state partners work to restore power.”
Around 95 percent of SWEPCO’s customers are expected to have their power restored by 10 p.m. on Sept. 3.
As of 8:45 a.m, Monday, Cleco reported that power has been restored to over 81,000 customers, or 58 percent, of the 140,000 customers affected by Hurricane Laura, one of the most powerful storms to hit Louisiana since 1856. With 1,020 workers expected on the ground as of today, the company expects to progress through another approximately 5 to 10 percent of its customers daily over the next three to seven days. In Rapides, 29,532 remained without power.
“Our numbers continue to improve, but we still have a long way to go,” James Lass, director of distribution operations and emergency management, said. “This is the second-largest number of resources we’ve brought in for a storm, second only after Hurricane Katrina. To date, we have over 3,000 personnel dedicated to restoration efforts with numbers increasing each day.”
Electric companies are benefiting from outside assistance. For example, more than 1,400 Southern Company resources from all three of the system’s electric operating companies have headed to Texas and Louisiana after Laura made landfall early Thursday.
Approximately 100 personnel and crews from Georgia Power made their way to a staging location in Baton Rouge before receiving assignments. An additional 300 Georgia Power support personnel have been cleared to aid in any additional restoration. Mississippi Power is sending a storm team of more than 85 linemen, engineers, logistics, safety, and security employees to Louisiana. And about 350 Alabama Power responders from across Alabama, including line crews and support personnel, departed crew headquarters last week.
Efforts follow a certain pattern: damage assessment, debris removal, and power restoration – with priority given to essential services and facilities. Only then do crews work to return service to the largest number of residential and business customers as quickly as possible, before pivoting to individual homes and smaller groups.
