Companies urge customers to make their preparations

New Orleans, La. – With the 2012 hurricane season officially under way, Entergy New Orleans, Inc., and Entergy Louisiana, LLC are ready to quickly and safely restore power should a major storm threaten Louisiana.

In fact, the Entergy utility companies that serve the New Orleans area prepare year-round to ensure they can provide the exceptional emergency response that has earned Edison Electric Institute awards for Entergy 14 years in a row. Just as Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana remain ready to mobilize for any storm response, the companies also encourage customers to be prepared and make sure their personal storm plans are in place.

“Preparation for hurricanes or other major weather events is something we focus on every single day of the year,” said Charles Rice, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans, Inc. “As proud as we are of our record of excellence in emergency response, we are committed to always providing the best service to our customers, storm or no storm. And we know that each experience offers us the opportunity to continue to learn, evolve and improve. While experts predict this hurricane season will be less active, both Entergy and our customers must continue to make preparation a priority. Just one storm, if it comes our way, can have a major impact.”

What Entergy Does to Prepare

Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana use pre-emptive service strategies to help stop outages before they occur and promote safe, fast restoration when they do occur.

The companies focus on projects that improve reliability, including trimming thousands of circuit miles of vegetation and proactively inspecting power lines using infrared technology to identify and prevent potential problems.

The utilities are leveraging advanced technology in the field by installing Alternate Load Transfer schemes, which use advanced detection equipment to quickly isolate the location of a fault on a feeder line and transfer customers to an alternate feed. As a result, the impact to customers is a blink, rather than a sustained outage.

Entergy has also improved the tools that allow customers to stay informed after a storm. Customers can track outages down to the street level using the company’s View Outages feature and can register to receive text alerts notifying them of outages and power restoration progress. Customers can also visit entergystormcenter.com for safety and preparation information as well as storm updates, photos and videos. Company updates are also available via Twitter for both Entergy New Orleans (@EntergyNOLA) and Entergy Louisiana (@EntergyLA).

What Customers Should Do to Prepare

As important as it is for Entergy and its employees to be ready for hurricanes and other weather events, customers should make their own preparations before a storm hits and know how to stay safe during and after its impact. Detailed information is available at entergystormcenter.com, but some key tips include:

• Learn about evacuation routes and have a destination in mind before you leave.

• Pack important supplies such as nonperishable food, a multi-day supply of any necessary medications and supplies for small children and pets.

• Stock up on batteries and have a hand-cranked radio and flashlight available.

• If a storm does hit, stay away from downed power lines. Never use a generator indoors.

“Getting your power back on quickly after a storm is our focus. But there’s one thing more important than even that – and it’s doing our job safely,” said Rice. “We encourage customers to make safety before, during and after a storm their first priority, too.”

Entergy’s Louisiana utility companies serve more than one million customers through the operating companies Entergy Louisiana, LLC and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana, L.L.C. With operations in southern, central and northeastern Louisiana, the companies are part of Entergy Corporation’s electric system serving 2.8 million customers in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

Entergy New Orleans, Inc. is an electric and gas utility serving Orleans Parish and is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. . The company provides electricity to more than 160,000 customers and natural gas to more than 100,000 customers in Orleans Parish.

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