A few thousand more homes had their power restored Friday in Southeast Louisiana. But around 309,000 remain in the dark.
More than 96,000 Entergy customers in New Orleans are still powerless, while 40,000 remain without power along the coast in St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. Nearly 10,000 are without power in St. Charles.
Jefferson Parish was the hardest hit. Nearly 140,000 remain without power in the sprawling, semi-coastal parish that includes Metairie.
Entergy CEO Phillip May, who is without power at his own home Uptown, said the goal is to restore at least half of the outages over the weekend, though it could take up to ten days.
“This was a wind event and as a result, we have had some devastating impacts on our infrastructure,” May said.
In New Orleans, that’s largely meant tree limbs that tore power lines and a few toppled poles, but in lower coastal parishes wind blew entire transmission structures into swamps and tore poles from the ground.
May said the company will provide more detailed estimates at the neighborhood level on their website by Friday night.
The company does not have an estimate yet for the cost of repairs for Hurricane Zeta. Hurricane Laura in August cost about $1.4 billion, costs that will ultimately be handed down to rate-payers.
At the same time, many customers are still deferring on payments due to the loss of income caused by the pandemic.
“People need to step back and think about how blessed we are that this storm didn’t bring a lot of water,” May said. “We’ve got beautiful cool weather, and we want to get your power back on as soon as possible.”
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9 a.m.
If you're without power in Southeast Louisiana this morning, you're very much not alone.
More than 107,000 Entergy customers in New Orleans and more than 336,000 throughout Louisiana are without power Friday.
Homes and businesses began to lose power Wednesday afternoon and evening as Hurricane Zeta made landfall in Southeast Louisiana. The bulk of the outages are in areas directly in the path of the storm that brought 110 mph wind: Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, St. Charles, Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes.
As of 8:30 a.m. Friday, Entergy said it had restored power to 40 percent of the New Orleans homes and businesses that lost it. In southern Louisiana it was 25 percent, and statewide, it was 30 percent.
Entergy spokesperson Lee Sabatini told New Orleans Public Radio yesterday that people in the areas hardest-hit by Zeta could be without power for as long as 10 days, though about 90 percent of homes and businesses it serves should get power back sooner. The company also said in a public statement that it could take up to three days for those areas to get an estimate on how long restoration will take.
This story has been updated throughout to reflect an update from Entergy.
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