The utility companies servicing Acadiana have made a lot of progress since the Wednesday morning storms that knocked out power to thousands.
As of April 12, here's what they're reporting:
CLECO
As of Friday morning, Cleco was reporting just under 10,000 Louisiana customers without power. The largest number, 7,972 customers, is in St. Tammany Parish, which was hit by a tornado Wednesday. In St. Landry, 1,931 customers were without power Friday morning and there were 275 without power in Evangeline Parish.
Last night, Cleco restored power to half of the customers who remained without power following Wednesday’s severe weather that disrupted power for nearly 45,000 customers statewide.
“Late yesterday afternoon, we had roughly 20,000 customers without power,” said Clint Robichaux, director of distribution operations and reliability. “Last night, we restored power to half of those customers.”
“We are proud of the efforts of our crews who continue to work to make conditions safe and restore power for our customers,” said Robichaux. “We appreciate our customers’ patience as we work through this statewide outage.”
Friday afternoon, officials said they hoped to have all of Opelousas restored today and at least half of the Slidell customers back up as well.
“As the day goes on, we’ll have a better idea of restoration times for the remaining 3,500 customers in Slidell, but we do anticipate some customers will remain without power overnight,” said Clint Robichaux, director of distribution operations and reliability. “We understand the inconvenience to our customers. As Cleco employees we not only work here in Louisiana but live here too and have also been impacted by storms. We know it’s not easy and we thank our customers for their patience as we work to safely restore power to our communities.”
In addition to Cleco personnel, the company has added 360 line mechanics and vegetation specialists to help with power restoration efforts in Slidell.
SLEMCO
As of Friday morning, SLEMCO was reporting just a few more than 500 Acadiana customers without power. There are 27 out in Acadia, 25 in Evangeline, 1 in Lafayette, 424 in St. Landry, none in St. Martin and 28 in Vermilion.
ENTERGY
As work progresses on the third day of restoration, cranes and track equipment are being heavily utilized as utility crews narrow in on repairs and rebuild work being made in rural fields and densely wooded areas.
Although approximately 4,000 customers remain without power following Wednesday’s storms that brought high winds and spawned multiple tornadoes, Entergy’s storm team has restored power to most customers and plan to have nearly all customers who can safely accept service back online by tonight.
In Pointe Coupee Parish, as well as in West and East Feliciana parishes, much of the work is off-road. In Point Coupee Parish, crews are focused on Morganza and the area near Levee Road and the Waterloo area east of New Roads. In West and East Feliciana parishes, crews successfully energized two of three substations that were impacted and are working to restore the one serving the Clinton area today. A significant amount of work is taking place on both the distribution and transmission systems in the Feliciana parishes, especially near Commerce Street and Highway 61 north of St. Francisville.
If you are still without power, please check for any damage to the electrical equipment attached to your home or business. If any electrical meters or wiring appear to be damaged, please contact an electrician for assistance. If your electrical equipment appears to have no damage, please call 1-800-9OUTAGE (1-800-968-8243).
As a reminder, please be mindful of the following safety tips:
- Stay away from downed power lines and areas of debris. Energized power lines may not be visible among the rubble. Report downed lines immediately to Entergy at 1-800-9OUTAGE (1-800-968-8243).
- Do not trim trees or remove debris on or near downed power lines. Only power company crews or their contractors should remove trees or limbs touching power lines. Again, please avoid downed power lines.
- Keep your distance from working crews. Work sites can have any number of hidden dangers for the public, and distracting crews can cause accidents to happen.
- 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.
Stay informed. Be sure to report any outages via our mobile app at entergy.com/app [entergy.com] or online at entergy.com/reportoutage [myentergy.com].
For additional safety tips and updates on our restoration progress, please visit the Storm Center at entergystormcenter.com [entergynewsroom.com] and follow us on social media (Facebook and Twitter) at @EntergyLA.
