An open letter to our customers
Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO, Entergy Mississippi, addresses storm recovery
Over more than a week, Entergy Mississippi and our customers experienced an unprecedented series of severe storms, tornados and unusually high winds that caused the largest outage in our service area since Hurricane Katrina. Scores of fast-moving storm cells with 80+ mph winds not only cut a widespread path through our entire service area, but came day-after-day, sometimes through the same areas. Our power grid lost half as many poles, wires and transformers to weather in one week as we lost in all 2020, which was one of our worst storm years ever with four hurricanes and two tropical storms.
This created a worst-case scenario for power restoration. Our crews were forced to restore in an incredibly large area, stop work in mid-restoration as new storms kept re-appearing, and sometimes restore the same lines again after new storms caused new damage. It was almost a week before crews could work in a day with no new storm cells creating new damage. Making matters worse, additional crews from neighboring states were unavailable initially because those states saw similar extensive damage.
Nevertheless, our crews and contractors, 2,300 strong, did incredible work. All told, these heroes restored power to nearly a quarter of a million customers – half of our entire customer base — in a week. They replaced over 121 miles of poles and power lines in a matter of days – the equivalent of building a new power line from Jackson to Grenada! And they did it not in a straight line but winding through neighborhoods and rural areas in 34 of our 45 counties from the Tennessee to the Louisiana borders. I truly wish all our customers could have gotten a firsthand look at the great work our people and our partners did in getting their power on as quickly and safely as possible.
We know those customers who had their power out for several days were frustrated – and we were, too. I can assure our customers than when the power goes out NOBODY wants it to come on faster than the men and women of our company. We know how much our customers depend on the electricity we provide, and that’s because we are customers, too. Over the last week Entergy Mississippi employees have been without power themselves or had elderly parents, children, loved ones, friends or neighbors who were without power in the middle of a hot, humid June. That is why we take our responsibility personally and work so hard during these weather events.
While Entergy Mississippi’s response to this extreme weather was good, we always want to work hard to try to make it perfect next time. That is why after every outage we evaluate our work to see where we can improve for customers. We will be taking a hard look at the poor performance of our online outage app. Many of our customers were frustrated with the lack of information on the app during the outage and the inability to get restoration estimates. We need to make that product work better for customers. While an app does not restore power, I know firsthand how important that outage information is to customers as they make decisions for their family.
Despite their frustration and discomfort during the outage and restoration process, I was touched by the stories from our crews who told me about customers with no lights or air-conditioning who took the time to thank and encourage them while they worked. On behalf of all the employees of Entergy Mississippi, I want to express our thanks to our customers for their patience during this difficult weather event and challenging restoration.
