Just over one week after Hurricane Laura delivered a catastrophic blow to southwest Louisiana, power was restored on the morning of Sept. 6 in the communities of Toomey and Starks in heavily impacted Calcasieu Parish.
The return of power to these communities marks a major milestone in the recovery effort. While all nine transmission lines into southwest Louisiana were damaged and rendered inoperable, Entergy personnel were able to repair and energize one line to reconnect some customers in the region to a power generation source in eastern Texas, reenergizing the first substation in Calcasieu Parish following Laura.
"Our company and our communities have worked tirelessly for this moment," said Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana president and CEO. "It represents a major step in our goal to restore power to Calcasieu and Cameron parishes. While we still have many major hurdles to overcome, I believe this serves as a beacon of hope for our customers. Like the communities we serve, our team worked around the clock to arrive at this important milestone."
This initial step makes power available to approximately 2000 customers. Hurricane Laura delivered historic damage to southwest Louisiana, where more than 90,000 customers in the region were without power following the storm. High winds caused damage to more than 1600 transmission structures, 6637 broken poles, 2926 transformers, and 338 miles of downed distribution wire in the area.
Entergy Louisiana continues to deploy thousands of crews across the southwest portion of the state to complete the restoration process for all customers.
For more information on Entergy's restoration effort following Laura, visit here.
