New Orleans will have about 90% of its power restored by September 8, according to Entergy.
But for the hardest hit areas of the state, Entergy continues to say it could be weeks before power is restored.
“For many of those areas, this will not be a repair,” said Phillip May, the president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana. “It will be a rebuild.”
These are Entergy’s current restoration predictions:
- Port Allen – Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge and Iberville Parishes, Sept. 3
- Zachary – East and West Feliciana Parishes, Sept. 3
- Central Business District, Sept. 4
- B.R. Metro – East Baton Rouge Parish, Sept. 6
- Gonzales – Gonzales and parts of Ascension Parish, Sept. 7
- Denham Springs, Sept. 7
- Chalmette –St. Bernard and upper parts of Plaquemines Parish, Sept. 7
- Metairie-Kenner, Sept. 8
- Westbank – Westbank of Jefferson Parish, Sept. 8
- Algiers, Sept. 8
- New Orleans East, Sept. 8
- Orleans Parish, Sept. 8
Individual customers in those areas may have to wait longer for their power to come back. At this point Entergy said it’s returned power for 225,000 customers from a peak of about 904,000 outages.
About 71% of the state has been assessed by the company. The extensive amount of damage across the state has delayed that work.
Entergy has not been able to finish assessing the following locations:
- Lafourche Parish
- Terrebonne Parish
- Grand Isle
- St John Parish
- St Charles Parish
- St James Parish
- Eastern parts of Livingston Parish and Tangipahoa Parish
Jefferson Parish’s emergency responders said when they surveyed Grand Isle on Wednesday, they found the island covered in 3 to 6 feet of sand.
“The majority of the structures are obliterated and all the critical infrastructure is gone,” said Joe Valiente, Jefferson Parish’s director of emergency management on Wednesday. “The island at this point is totally uninhabitable.”
Power has been restored to Oschner’s main campus in Jefferson, its hospital in Kenner and its Clearview Parkway location in Metairie.
Baton Rouge will have most of its power back up on Sept. 6, two days earlier than Entergy stated yesterday.
In New Orleans, the French Quarter and Central Business District have had power restored more quickly. Entergy said that’s to provide a place to stay for the approximately 50,000 linemen in New Orleans that are working on repairing the system.
Crews in the city have identified 1,070 broken poles, 301 damaged transformers and 780 downed spans of wire. Three of the eight transmission lines that deliver power into the city have been repaired.
However, Entergy says the map isn’t always accurate, especially on the street level. Green lights indicating power to a street doesn’t guarantee power back to an address on that road.
About 58 percent of Entergy’s customers in Louisiana are without power.
