About 20 percent of the state of Louisiana’s power outages from Hurricane Ida have been restored, according to the Department of Energy’s situation update from Friday.
There are still about 928,000 people without power, 866,000 of which are in Louisiana, with about 46,000 without power in the Northeast, which is where Ida swept after coming aground and being downgraded to a tropical depression.
“As of the morning of September 1, Entergy restored power for some customers in eastern New Orleans with generation supplied by the New Orleans Power Station. Entergy is working to restore the transmission system serving New Orleans,” according to the DOE report from the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response.
Restoration efforts are nearing completion in the impacted regions. Estimated restoration times will be established once damage assessments are complete.
“Utilities are conducting damage assessments and restoration efforts are underway, as conditions permit. Damage assessments of most locations should be completed by September 2. Estimated restoration times will be established once damage assessments are complete. Utilities in the impacted area pre-staged crews, equipment, and materials, and mutual assistance networks are supporting restoration efforts,” according to the DOE report.
DOE is coordinating with industry, interagency, and territorial partners to support response efforts related to Hurricane Ida.
Industry has activated mutual assistance networks and over 25,000 personnel from at least 32 states and the District of Columbia are support restoration efforts. Crews, materials and equipment were pre-positioned in advance of impacts from Hurricane Ida, according to DOE.
Utilities typically follow an overall plan to restore service to customers. After power is restored to essential services and facilities critical to public health and safety, crews focus on repairing lines that will return service to the largest number of customers in the least amount of time. Power is restored systematically to neighborhoods, industries, and businesses and then to individual homes and small groups of customers.
Damage assessments are expected to take three days. Restoration efforts will continue to ramp up over the next few days. Estimated times to restoration will begin to be established once damage assessments are complete.
