Entergy Louisiana restores power to majority of customers impacted by winter storm

BATON ROUGE, La. - Entergy Louisiana crews have restored power to 90% of customers impacted at the peak of the recent winter storm, marking a major milestone in a challenging and complex restoration effort across north Louisiana.

Since the storm began, Entergy Louisiana teams have restored power to over 118,000 customers. The number of customers restored is significantly higher than the amount of customers out at the peak of the storm. Ice-laden trees and vegetation continue to fall onto power lines creating additional outages long after the storm has passed. While significant progress has been made, restoration has often required crews to revisit the same areas multiple times as new damage was discovered.

"Reaching 90% restored reflects the extraordinary work of our lineworkers and support teams under extremely difficult conditions," said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. "At the same time, the remaining outages are among the most complex and labor-intensive we face, often in rural and hard-to-access areas with extensive vegetation damage."

The extent of the storm's impact is significant. Crews identified widespread damage to the grid, including nearly 1,000 utility poles, more than 500 miles of wire and 210 transformers that must be repaired or replaced.

In heavily impacted areas, crews continue to encounter falling trees and limbs. Vegetation crews are proactively removing hanging and leaning limbs that threaten the electric system, but additional outages and restoration delays remain possible as damaged trees continue to fall.

Restoration work in the remaining areas is highly complex and time-consuming, often requiring specialized off-road equipment and the replacement of multiple poles and line spans.

In some cases, dozens of poles must be replaced to restore service to a relatively small number of customers, extending restoration timelines despite continued progress. For example, in the Warden area of Richland Parish, crews must replace 75 utility poles to restore power to 110 customers. This work requires roughly 20 crews working for about a day and a half to complete. Situations like this explain why restoration may take longer in certain areas, even as overall progress continues.

Crews remain committed to restoring power as safely and quickly as possible and will continue working until all customers are safely restored.