Insights > Restoration Efforts Continue Throughout Louisiana

Restoration Efforts Continue Throughout Louisiana


Our workers continue restoring service and assess damage caused by Barry, where it is safe to do so. The storm made landfall yesterday as a Category 1 hurricane and is slowly moving through Louisiana.

A line of severe weather, including tornadoes, moved through south Louisiana Sunday, causing additional damage and slowing restoration in the hardest-hit areas.

As of 8 p.m. Sunday, there are 27,000 customers who remain without power in Louisiana, with the largest concentration in the Bayou Region parishes and the Greater Baton Rouge area.

Since Barry first started affecting Louisiana, we have restored more than 235,000 customer outages.

We have faced several challenges in the Bayou Region, which includes Assumption, Lafourche, St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes. Challenges include inaccessible roadways due to high water and high winds that kept us from using bucket trucks.

Crews restored power Sunday to all of Grand Isle and nearly all of Port Fourchon, areas that previously had been inaccessible due to flooding. Workers are assessing damage and restoring service where it is safe to do so. As winds subside, we will fly drones to assess damage.

In the Greater Baton Rouge area, a significant portion of the damage is in the rear of residential lots. These repairs usually take more time, given the challenge of accessing those areas with our equipment and working on ground that is softened by excessive rain.

As we restore service in other parts of the state, we will reassign crews to areas still without power. Some may notice that neighbors have power even while they are still without. This could be caused by the two areas being served by different parts of the electrical grid, similar to circuit breakers powering separate sections of a home.

We urge our customers to keep safety top of mind. The greatest danger during and after a storm like this is from downed power lines. Do not go near a power line on the ground, in trees or bushes or near other objects. Call us at 800-9OUTAGE.

Louisiana Editorial Team