NEW ORLEANS — Residents say they're over-sitting in the dark because their power has gone out yet again. Thousands were without power Wednesday night across the city and more people lost power this morning. According to Entergy New Orleans, Thursday morning's outage remains under investigation.
The outages come after city councilmembers grilled Entergy New Orleans about the company's reliability at a council meeting Thursday.
Central City resident Trenise Cooper says she's done with the constant blackouts, saying, "Entergy what ya'll going to do, you need to get on your game."
She went on to say, "There isn't even a storm going and the lights are going off, and I am trying to figure out why."
Right around the corner, on her porch is Ms. Willistine Brock. She says she's lived in New Orleans since 1970. She says she doesn't remember a time the city was plagued with this many, continual outages and says customers deserve a break.
"I think if our power goes out they should deduct it from our light bill," said Brock.
Residents WWL Louisiana spoke to are asking why their power is out. They say the continual outages even in fair weather are completely and utterly frustrating. Cooper said, "What's going on, are ya'll working on the problem."
Brock said, "Really I didn't understand why it went out."
Entergy New Orleans said, “Last night’s outage, which initially impacted approximately 8,400 customers, was caused by damage to a breaker at the Derbigny substation. Our crews restored power to all customers at 7:49 pm."
City Councilman Joe Giarrusso says he's just as frustrated as residents, saying, "There was literally a utilities meeting yesterday about reliability, you go into last night there's a power outage that affects District A, B and C, then there's another outage this morning."
He says the people of New Orleans just want to live in a functional city. A city where the uncertainty of flicking a light switch doesn't fill you with anxiety. "Neighbors throw up their hands... They're basic quality of life issues, they're basic infrastructure things and people say they don't want to live like this," Giarrusso said.
He says it's vital the energy company know how old their equipment is and have a plan to replace any of it that's frail. "Have this asset management plan, where they can say this piece of equipment it needs to be replaced proactively."
Residents like Cooper, are over footing the bill for services they say aren't being delivered, "And then the bills are higher... We supposed to be paying for service that we aren't getting."
Entergy New Orleans said, “Entergy’s operations team is working through a comprehensive program to systematically replace equipment that may be at risk of experiencing similar failure.”
Regarding Thursday's outage, Entergy New Orleans said, "Cause remains under investigation at this time. We had a leaning pole taking tension off the line. Working to confirm what may have caused the pole to lean."
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