Barry made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 1 hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm in mid-July. The storm brought heavy rains, high tides and coastal and river flooding that impacted utility customers and caused widespread outages.
Prior to the storm, Entergy Louisiana assembled 1200 crew members and an additional 770 workers from neighboring Entergy utilities. The linemen mobilized to locations where they could rapidly respond once the storm passed and it was safe to begin the restoration work.
Tornadoes moved through south Louisiana, which slowed down restoration in the hardest-hit areas. The largest concentration of outages were in the Bayou Region parishes and the Greater Baton Rouge area. In these areas, the damage occurred to the rear of residential lots. Due to flooding, some roads were inaccessible to line crews, and the high winds kept the linemen from using their bucket trucks.
This photo gallery shows a glimpse of the damage caused by Tropical Storm Barry as well as the line crews restoring power. For more information, look for a feature story in the September Electric Utility Operations section.