BATON ROUGE, La. – Work crews are restoring power to Entergy Louisiana customers who lost service due to a powerful thunderstorm that rolled across the northern part of the state Thursday night, hitting the Winnsboro area particularly hard.

The crews are engaged in full-scale restoration efforts and will continue to safely work as quickly as possible until all power is restored. By 10 a.m. Friday, some 4,700 of the more than 7,000 affected customers were back in service. The majority of the approximately 2,500 customers still without power are expected to be restored today. A few may extend into Saturday.

Entergy crews began assessing damage and restoring power as soon as it was safe to do so following the storm. The company urges everyone to stay safe, and to stay away from downed power lines as well as flooded areas. Customers should report downed or dangling power lines, poles or other damaged equipment to 1-800-9OUTAGE (1-800-968-8243). Customers should not walk in standing water or venture into areas of debris since power lines that could still be energized and dangerous may not be visible.

Entergy’s Louisiana utilities prepare year-round to provide the exceptional emergency response that has earned Edison Electric Institute awards for Entergy 14 years in a row. Just as Entergy Louisiana and Entergy Gulf States 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.

Customers can track outages down to the street level using the company’s View Outages feature located on the company’s website, and can register online at entergylouisiana.com or by text message to receive text alerts notifying them of outages and power restoration progress. They can sign up for text messaging online or by texting to number 368374 and entering their Entergy account number and ZIP code in the message. During major events, text messages may not be available for affected areas. Text messages may result in charges from wireless providers.

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.

-30-
entergylouisiana.com
Twitter: EntergyLA