Tens of thousands of Acadiana residents spent at least part of Wednesday in the dark after a strong storm system passed through.
Here are the updates we've received from utility companies on Thursday:
SLEMCO
Acadia Parish: 910 customers without power. That's 6 percent of the 14,923 customers in that parish.
Evangeline Parish: 170 customers without power. That's 9 percent of the 1,804 customers in that parish.
Iberia Parish: No outages reported.
St. Landry Parish: 2,507 customers without power. That's 13 percent of the of 19,728 customers in that parish.
St. Martin Parish: No outages reported.
Vermilion Parish: No outages reported.
CLECO
Cleco is reporting 4,613 Acadiana customers without power: 4,306 in St. Landry Parish and 307 in Evangeline Parish.
The only other parish with outages is St. Tammany, where 19,104 customers are without power after a tornado hit the area on Wednesday.
Here's the latest from Cleco:
Cleco and contractor crews continue to work to make system repairs and restore power following severe storms that passed through the state yesterday.
Statewide, in addition to Cleco storm resources, the company has added 400 contractor line mechanics and vegetation specialists from out of state to assist with clean-up and power restoration efforts.
“Out of the 400 additional resources, we’ve directed over 125 additional resources to Opelousas and over 250 personnel to Slidell,” said Clint Robichaux, director of distribution operations and reliability. “The storm impacted our entire system statewide, and as we are wrapping up clean-up, system repairs and power restoration in other areas of the state, we will be sending even more Cleco and contractor resources to Opelousas and Slidell.”
In addition to trees on lines and downed wire, the company is currently reporting over 50 broken poles in Opelousas and over 70 broken poles in Slidell.
“Because of flooding and debris in roads, our crews have only assessed 50 percent of the system in St. Tammany,” said Robichaux. “We expect the damage, like the number of broken poles, to increase as the crews continue to work throughout the day.”
Cleco will provide customers with estimated restoration times later in the day.
“We expect to make progress on system repairs and power restoration today but anticipate that this could be a multi-day restoration event for some areas,” said Robichaux.
ENTERGY
Here's what Entergy sent us around 3 p.m. Thursday:
Utility crews are working hard to restore power to the remaining 13,000 customers whose electric service was interrupted following yesterday’s storm. They expect most customers will be restored by tonight except for isolated cases of customers in the hardest-hit areas in or around Calcasieu Parish and Lafayette.
For the latest available estimated times of restoration by region, please see the list below.
With damage assessment by scouts and others in the field nearly complete, approximately 210 poles, 560 spans of wire (amount of wire from pole to pole), 80 transformers and 255 crossarms were found to need repair or replacement. In some areas, the damage was significant due to impacts from fallen limbs or uprooted trees and even tornadic activity. According to the National Weather Service, an EF-1 tornado impacted the St. Francisville area and an EF-2 tornado with winds up to 115 mph moved across part of Lake Charles.
As work progresses on day two of restoration, crews are completing work in some communities and joining crews in other areas to accelerate efforts there. As they narrow in on locations that remain without power, they are facing strenuous work and access challenges. For example, in Pointe Coupee Parish, crews are using specialized offroad equipment to transport materials like poles and work in rural fields that have been saturated by rain. This is similar to the challenges facing crews in West and East Feliciana parishes where the combination of saturated ground and dense woods are slowing restoration work. There, crews are performing a mix of work on the distribution and transmission systems to reenergize several substations and get electricity flowing back to power lines as well as homes and businesses.
Some customers may not be able to take service when Entergy completes its work because they have damage to their home or electric equipment like their weatherhead. For more information on this scenario and what must be done before Entergy can restore service, please visit the What’s yours? What’s ours? on our Newsroom.
Also, if you are using a portable generator, please use it safely and according to manufacturer guidelines. Please do not use generators indoors or plug them directly into your home’s wiring system as this can create what is called backfeed and make it dangerous for utility crews working on nearby power lines. For more safety tips related to generators, visit our Storm Center.
In addition, there is no way to know whether downed power lines or other electric equipment is energized simply by looking at it, so keep your distance and report these cases to us at 1-800-9OUTAGE (1-800-968-8243).
ESTIMATED TIMES OF RESTORATION BY REGION
*While many customers will be restored sooner, the timeframes below describe when crews expect to have most customers who can safely accept electric service restored.
- Greater Baton Rouge area – Crews expect to restore power to most customers in the Baton Rouge metropolitan and Denham Springs areas by this evening and most in the Port Allen and Zachary areas by tonight.
- North Louisiana – Crews expect to restore power to most customers by tonight.
- Southwest Louisiana – Crews expect to restore power to most customers by tonight with isolated cases of customers in Calcasieu Parish and Lafayette areas being restored by tomorrow afternoon.
- Tangipahoa Parish – Crews expect to restore power to most customers in the Hammond area by sometime this afternoon and most customers in the Amite area by tonight.
- West and East Feliciana parishes – Crews expect to restore power to most customers by sometime tomorrow afternoon.
