Nearly 94 percent of electricity customers back online following Hurricane Zeta’s wrath
According to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), only 197,300 southern electricity customers of nearly 3.1 million affected by Hurricane Zeta earlier this month remained without power as of Monday morning.
When the storm ravaged the American South last Thursday, it brought high winds and heavy rainfall to Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. Matters were further complicated in Texas and Oklahoma, as the hurricane followed a historic ice storm that knocked power out to 457,000 last Wednesday. As of 6 a.m., 152,300 of those customers remain without power.
Electric companies in the storms’ path had readied crews, resources, and equipment beforehand to handle any outages. More than 23,000 workers from at least 29 states and Canada descended on the region to assist. As a result, companies like Entergy were able to swiftly restore power to more than 82 percent of its affected customers by 8 p.m. Sunday.
For Entergy customers, the storm ended up knocking out power to more than 480,000 throughout Louisiana. Nearly 400,000 have now regained power, and work remains ongoing. Outage maps show, as of noon today, that most affected areas have clusters of one to 50 customers with power still out, though some areas continue to experience outages for 51 to 250 customers. The company reported damage to more than 2,700 poles, 570 transformers, and nearly 1,800 spans of wire.
Jefferson and Orleans parishes took the brunt of damage by far, with more than 180,000 Entergy customers in Jefferson facing outages at the hurricane’s peak and more than 178,000 affected in Orleans.
EEI reports that industry and government alike are coordinating on response through the CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council. Companies are especially concerned about restoring power to designated voting locations as the nation readies to vote in the presidential election this week.
