Hurricane Gustav made landfall Sept. 1, at 10 a.m., near Cocodrie, Louisiana.
The peak number of outages for Hurricane Gustav of 850,000 occurred early Tuesday morning. Since then, service to some customers has been restored while service to others has been lost, including customers in Arkansas who have been affected by the storm. Hurricane Gustav caused the second largest number of outages in company history, behind only Hurricane Katrina. Gustav restoration rivals the scale and difficulty of Hurricane Katrina restoration.
Entergy preparations began early last week, well in advance of Hurricane Gustav. Entergy is nationally recognized as a leader in the industry at restoring major damage safely and quickly.
Transmission System Severely Damaged
The “islanded” portion of the transmission system in southeast Louisiana, south of Lake Pontchartrain, was reconnected to the Entergy system last night by restoring transmission line connections to the east and west. Despite the successful connection to the area, Entergy’s transmission system has sustained extremely severe damage from Hurricane Gustav, damage that could make power restoration a difficult and slow process, especially in southeastern Louisiana.
The transmission damage across the Entergy system includes at least 191 transmission lines, or about 40 percent of the transmission lines in the affected area of Louisiana. In addition, 210 substations, or 27 percent, are out of service in the area.
Restoration Progress
Bad weather from the storm continues today in the Entergy system, impeding progress to restore service and assess damage. Assessments made thus far indicate extensive damage to Entergy’s system.
Entergy is in contact with the Department of Energy for help with using aircraft to assess damage from the air.
The largest numbers of Gustav outages in Arkansas, about 22,000, are in the Little Rock/Benton area. Another 7,000 are out in Russellville, 3,500 in Warren, about 1,000 each in Crossett, Fordyce and Monticello, and the rest are scattered throughout the state.
Thursday morning all 200 Arkansas linemen and 150 additional support workers who had been sent to Louisiana Monday will be back in Arkansas working on restoring power here. In addition, nearly 200 workers from other utility companies to the north who had been heading to the Gulf Coast have been retained to help the Arkansas workforce instead.
In terms of power outages, Hurricane Gustav is the second worst in Entergy’s 95-year history, peaking at about 850,000 early Tuesday – the overwhelming majority of them in Louisiana. That easily bypassed the 800,000 outages in Hurricane Rita in 2005. The only larger number of Entergy outages was 1.1 million in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
The largest numbers of Gustav outages in Louisiana are being reported in Jefferson, Orleans, East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Tangipahoa, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Ascension, Plaquemines, Livingston, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, Assumption and St. Landry parishes in Louisiana and Adams County in Mississippi.
Entergy is assessing damage in order to estimate when electricity will be restored to specific locations. In some areas where the damage is the most extensive or where access is the most difficult, restoration could take several weeks.
Entergy’s team of more than 10,000 restoration workers has begun safely restoring service as quickly as possible.
Restoration workers are responding from Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Generation
Entergy’s River Bend nuclear plant in St. Francisville, La., was taken out of service Monday afternoon to help keep the electricity transmission grid in balance due to reduced demand. Entergy’s other Louisiana nuclear plant – Waterford 3 at Taft near New Orleans – completed a controlled shutdown on Sunday night in anticipation of the heavy winds forecast for Monday morning.
Entergy’s Waterford 3 Nuclear Plant near New Orleans completed a controlled shutdown on Sunday night in accordance with procedure at approximately 10:30 p.m. in anticipation of the heavy winds that were forecast for Monday morning.
River Bend Nuclear Station was brought offline on Monday evening due to loss of demand caused by extensive outages in the region.
Personnel at both plants are performing site assessments this morning and working closely with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine a timeline for restart.
Bringing the plants online will be closely coordinated with utility company personnel to maintain the reliability of the power grid.