Companies demonstrate readiness at 2010 Hurricane Expo

Kenner, La. – With another hurricane season on the horizon, Entergy’s Louisiana companies are ready to quickly and safely restore power should a destructive storm hit the New Orleans metro area.

The companies talked about their readiness and demonstrated some of the factors that go into a restoration effort as part of the 2010 Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Expo, held Wednesday at the Pontchartrain Center.

“Preparing for a hurricane or any other major weather event is something we do every day at Entergy,” said Rod West, president and chief executive officer of Entergy New Orleans, Inc. “We take pride in being one of the nation’s best in restoring power quickly and safely when our customers need it most. We are ready to respond if any storm threatens our area.”

A featured speaker at Monday’s event was Dr. Barry Keim, the Louisiana state climatologist and professor in the LSU Department of Geography and Anthropology. Dr. Keim discussed projections of how the 2010 hurricane season might impact the New Orleans area.
In addition to remarks from Dr. Keim, West reviewed Entergy’s strategy responding to storms while also offering hurricane preparedness and safety tips. Entergy Storm Incident Commander Randy Helmick, vice president of Energy Delivery, gave an overview of how utilities recruit, house and coordinate the work of thousands of restoration workers who assist Entergy after major storms and the details of how the company prepares and responds to a storm.

“We drill every year to make sure that our employees are ready to respond if a storm hits the Entergy service territory,” Helmick said. “Replacing a single pole, cross arm or transmission line is difficult, dangerous and time-consuming. When you multiply that by thousands of poles, cross arms or lines, you begin to understand how challenging a task it is to restore power after a major storm. But that’s why we prepare. If a storm hits this year, we’ll be ready.”

The Entergy companies use lessons learned from previous storms to improve the companies’ response to future storms. To prepare for the 2010 hurricane season, the companies:

• Enhanced storm restoration models to provide quicker damage assessments,

• Streamlined evacuation planning to ensure that employees and equipment are able to return to affected areas more quickly,

• Used infrared to inspect major lines serving hospitals and emergency responders to detect potential problems before they occur,

• Conducted proactive inspections of primary lines in order to undertake preventative maintenance,

• Installed “switching” devices and “fault location tools” in strategic areas to help reduce the duration of customer outages.

Because trees and tree limbs are often the top cause of outages during a storm, the companies are on pace to complete more than 3,500 miles of tree trimming before June 1 and 5,800 miles by the end of the year. The metro New Orleans, southeast Louisiana region will see almost 2,225 miles of tree trimming activity this year.

Entergy is nationally recognized in the last 12 years for its storm response efforts. Earlier this year, Entergy Corporation won an Emergency Recovery Award from the Edison Electric Institute for the 12th consecutive year. Entergy is the only company in the nation to be honored with an EEI Emergency Response Award since they were first presented in 1998.

The Hurricane Expo featured booths from more than 40 exhibitors. State and federal agencies as well as local parishes served to educate local residents on how to better prepare their homes, families and businesses for hurricane season. Vendors also offered products to help citizens prepare for or respond to major storms.

Wednesday’s Expo also included:

• a safety demonstration to show what happens when everyday objects come into contact with an energized power line,

• a 3D model to show how power is restored from the power plant to customer’s homes after a storm,

• An exhibit showing Entergy’s Storm Center website, including the View Outages feature. The exhibit will also feature Entergy’s Outage Texting service, which texts information to cell phones, and My Account Online, the companies’ online account management service.

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 150,000 customers and natural gas to more than 96,000 customers in Orleans Parish.

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 2.7 million customers in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

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