Entergy New Orleans, Inc. has successfully completed restoring power to all of its customers who could safely take electricity after the impact of Hurricane Gustav.

"I can't say enough about the Entergy team of linemen and out-of-state workers who came together under very difficult conditions to pull off one of the fastest restoration projects in our history," said Rod West, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans. "The obstacles were many, but they did not deter our workers from their end goal, which was to restore service to our customers as safely and quickly as possible."

Entergy New Orleans had restored power to more than 107,780 customers impacted by the storm. Customers without power from Gustav peaked at 107,827. The pace of restoration beats the level of restoration following hurricanes Katrina and Rita and is the fastest power restoration in history of Entergy Corp. At Hurricane Gustav's peak, it knocked out service to 850,000 customers at one time systemwide, making it the second-most damaging storm in Entergy's 95-year history.

As of 4:30 p.m. yesterday, Entergy utilities had restored power to 820,601, or 85 percent of the customers affected by Gustav.

More than 13,000 workers and contractors from 25 different states continue restoring power to customers in Louisiana, which is almost eight times the size of crews during normal operations for Entergy's service area. Over the last two days, crews have been released to assist the Entergy Louisiana restoration efforts north and south of New Orleans.

"We would like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we methodically tackled each component of the restoration," West said. "While we never compromise safety in the interest of speed, our goal was to get the lights back on for everyone as quickly as possible. We understand how important it is to restore electric service as soon as possible. Remember, we live here too."

Entergy New Orleans, Inc. is an electric and gas utility serving Orleans Parish and is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. The company provides electricity to more than 141,000 customers and natural gas to more than 88,000 customers in Orleans Parish.