Heading into the 2005 hurricane season, Entergy employees gathered to participate in the annual systemwide storm exercise. The fictional scenario that year involved two back-to-back hurricanes striking our service area. Fast forward a few months later, hurricanes Katrina and Rita made landfall less than a month apart.

Our response quickly became an all-hands-on-deck situation with teams from across Entergy’s four-state service area stepping up to help in massive ways. Our workforce, along with support from peer utilities through mutual assistance, rose to the occasion during two of the most challenging storms in our company’s 100-year history.

Entergy Arkansas sends crews 
Although hurricanes are a lesser-known threat in Arkansas, our employees are well-versed in restoration efforts resulting from Mother Nature. When the reality post-Katrina began to unfold, Entergy lineworkers, vegetation crews and other employees headed to Louisiana and got to work.

For Moochie McDonald, a line supervisor with Entergy Arkansas, the disaster struck a deeply personal chord. A native of New Orleans, McDonald was in the city helping his wife’s family evacuate when Katrina neared. After seeking shelter in Jackson, Mississippi, he drove to Arkansas to meet up with more than 100 mutual assistance workers before heading to Metairie.

“When I got there, it looked like a war zone,” McDonald said. “We were rebuilding entire sections of the grid and replacing thousands of poles. I saw my hometown — friends and family — deeply affected by the destruction.” McDonald and other Arkansas crew members spent two months on the ground in Louisiana. Despite the emotional toll, he said, “the storm changed a lot in us, and the experience built lasting bonds with fellow lineworkers from other Entergy operating companies.”

Waterford 3 plays dual role: Generating power and serving as a staging site
Located about 20 miles west of New Orleans, Waterford 3 fortunately received minimal damage during Hurricane Katrina. The plant and surrounding property played a crucial role in the region’s recovery – returning to normal operations within two weeks post-storm and serving as a staging site for restoration crews rebuilding the grid.

“We were sequestered for two weeks, doing repairs inside containment while the transmission system was being rebuilt,” said Bob Sebring, a former radiation protection technician who worked at Waterford 3 from 1987 to 2008. “A small city was created within three days to house, feed and provide laundry for hundreds of linemen, restoration workers and other Entergy employees working the storm.”

After start-up, the site also became a multi-purpose shelter for employees and their families whose homes were left uninhabitable by the hurricane. Assistance was available with housing, transportation, laundry, day care, counseling and other needs.

Mississippi lends a helping hand, opens its home

Katrina made landfall onto the Mississippi coast and continued up through the state, sustaining hurricane-force winds upwards through Jackson. The path of destruction left three quarters of Entergy Mississippi customers in the dark with restoration efforts spanning close to two weeks.

Despite local challenges, our employees across Mississippi also helped New Orleans-based corporate functions, such as transmission, communications and finance, regroup in the Jackson area. Entergy later, temporarily, relocated its corporate headquarters to Clinton for several months until conditions made it possible to return to New Orleans.

The Louisiana-Texas border takes on Rita

On Sept. 24, 2005 – 26 days after Katrina: Hurricane Rita made landfall as a Category 3 storm near the mouth of the Sabine River at the Louisiana-Texas border. The storm created even greater destruction to our transmission system in the area with more than 340 transmission lines and 440 substations out of service, interrupting service to 800,000 customers. It then proceeded up a northeasterly curve bringing further damage to other areas of our service territory.

Entergy crews sprang into action once again beginning a second, parallel, restoration plan. Restoration was completed in 21 days.

We’re better prepared today because of where we’ve been

The company’s response to Katrina and Rita set the standard in how we operate today. For the last 20 years, we’ve been recognized nationally as a leader in storm response and restoration.

Across our service area we remain storm-ready all year, with trained lineworkers, vegetation crews and thousands of other employees prepared to mobilize at a moment’s notice. Everyone at the company has a pre-determined response role, whether in the field repairing downed lines, organizing community resources or working behind the scenes supporting logistics, dispatch, supply chain or customer service. And we continue to set up staging sites throughout a restoration effort – bringing in our own crews but also contractors and peer utility crews through our mutual assistance agreements.

As a result, we are a better and stronger, more customer focused company today.

Video series: Watch Episode 3, “Lessons we’ve learned”

Throughout the month, we’ll share some of these stories of reflection, resilience, preparation and perseverance through a series of videos. Watch Episode 3 here.