BEAUMONT, Texas – Entergy Texas continues to make significant progress restoring power following Hurricane Laura’s landfall near the border of Texas and Louisiana. As of 8:00 a.m., Entergy Texas has approximately 20,000 customers without power compared to the peak of 291,300 customers. Overnight, crews were able to restore power to approximately 10,000 customers in the Groves, Nederland, Port Neches, Port Arthur and Orange areas.
More than 6,000 workers have converged on Jefferson and Orange counties to complete restoration efforts. These crews are working to repair significant damage to Entergy Texas’ system following Hurricane Laura. Crews have found more than 1,000 downed distribution poles, more than 200 blown transformers and approximately 380,000 feet of downed wire. Additionally, 37 Entergy Texas substations and 63 transmission lines in Texas were impacted.
“Our crews continue to make great progress getting the lights back on across our area,” said Sallie Rainer, president and CEO of Entergy Texas. “As we continue our Texas restoration, I would like to thank our customers for their patience while our crews are restoring power. Even as we make progress in Texas, there remains significant work ahead to continue restoring the broader transmission system.”
Moving forward, Entergy’s focus is on repairing the catastrophic damage to the transmission system across Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana, which together provide power to the eastern portion of Texas.
The transmission system plays a critical role in delivering power from the power plant to the lines serving customers’ neighborhoods. The damage from Hurricane Laura has eliminated much of the redundancy built into the transmission system, which makes it difficult to move power around the region to customers. These conditions, along with increasing demand due to higher temperatures, can result in an imbalance of supply and demand for electricity.
Six of the nine major transmission lines that deliver power into the Entergy Texas region from Louisiana are currently out of service as a result of significant storm damage to multiple structures and spans of conductor. A good number of the transmission structures within these lines were damaged beyond repair and require complete replacement.
While these transmission structures are being repaired, Entergy Texas’ engineering and operations groups are working closely, along with our reliability coordinator MISO, to ensure the safe and stable operation of the electric grid.
Stay Informed
Staying informed before, during and after a tropical system strikes is just as important as making personal storm plans. Here’s how customers can stay updated throughout the event:
- Download the Entergy App at entergyapp.com. Customers can use the app to report outages or check on the status of power at their home or business.
- Entergy’s View Outages website includes maps that show where outages are located and give information about restoration progress.
- Sign up for text messages about storm and restoration efforts by texting REG to 36778 with your account number and ZIP code.
- The Entergy Storm Center website has storm safety, preparation and restoration information that is updated throughout the day.
- Operation: Storm Ready Guide is a free downloadable guide that helps customers plan and prepare for weather emergencies.