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Half a Million Entergy Customers Still Without Power A Week After Ida

The animated GIF shows the progress of restoring power to Entergy customers in Louisiana over the last week. Any inaccuracies in Entergy’s outage map, which the company has acknowledged as happening, appear in this map as well.
Stephen Bisaha
A tree toppled over by Hurricane Ida took out electrical lines in a New Orleans neighborhood. Some parts of the city could see their power return in a matter of days — but for most residents, it could take longer.

Entergy said it's restored power to about 350,000 of its customers in the week since Hurricane Ida made landfall.

But about half a million customers are still waiting for their lights to come back on, according to the utility's outagemap Sunday morning.

Friday night, Entergy predicted the hardest hit parishes along the coast would have power restored no later than September 29. But now that it's completed its damage assessment, Entergy said some spots could take even longer.

The utility had returned power to 45 of its 53 largest customers by Sunday morning, though Entergy would not provide company names.

"These customers are critical as they supply important commodities, such as gasoline," said Philip May, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana, during a conference call briefing with reporters.

Restoring power to hospitals continues to be a priority, as well as major thoroughfares to get businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies up faster.

New Orleans should have most of its power restored by Wednesday. By Sunday morning, about 110,000 customers remained without electricity, about 56%.

At the peak of the power outages caused by Ida, about 92% of New Orleans customers lost power. Across the state, there were about 900,000 customers without electricity.

Here are the latest predictions from Entergy for restoring power to 90 percent of customers in these parishes:

  • Ascension Parish, Sept. 7
  • Assumption Parish, Sept. 22
  • East and West Feliciana Parish, Sept. 3
  • East Bank of Jefferson Parish, Sept. 8
  • East Baton Rouge Parish, (see below)
  • Iberville Parish, Sept. 4
  • Lafourche Parish, Sept. 29
  • Livingston Parish, Sept. 7
  • Lower Jefferson Parish, Sept.29
  • Plaquemines Parish, Sept. 29 
  • St. Bernard Parish, Sept. 7
  • St. Charles Parish, Sept. 29
  • St. James Parish, Sept. 17
  • St. John Parish, Sept. 17
  • St. Tammany Parish, Sept. 10
  • Tangipahoa Parish, Sept. 17
  • Terrebonne Parish, Sept. 29
  • Washington Parish, Sept. 10
  • Westbank of Jefferson Parish, Sept. 8

Details of power restoration timelines for specific neighborhoods in New Orleans and Baton Rouge can be found here.

Even once power returns to an area, Entergy warns it could momentarily disappear again as it has to shut off electricity to certain areas to continue repairs.

Stephan Bisaha is the wealth and poverty reporter for the Gulf States Newsroom, a regional collaboration between NPR and member stations in Alabama (WBHM), Mississippi (MPB) and Louisiana (WWNO and WRKF). He reports on the systemic drivers of poverty in the region and economic development.

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