NEW ORLEANS — Wednesday afternoon, about 36,000 Entergy customers in New Orleans lost power. It was a bright sunny day and Entergy officials have not yet released what caused the outages, thankfully they were restored in about 10 minutes for most.
Entergy crews are preparing for potentially more outages as Hurricane Delta approaches the state.
“A combination of soft ground and high winds results in trees falling into power lines and problems with poles, so we could still have problems and we're anticipating that,” said President and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, David Ellis.
Entergy New Orleans brought in an additional 12,000 workers to New Orleans to help respond.
This week, crews have been covering manholes being worked on, inspecting lines, and sandbagging substations in low lying areas.
They are preparing to tackle a weak Category 3 Hurricane, but are hopeful it’s all just a precaution. It’s possible, outages could last days.
“They’ll vary, but we're saying the high end 10 to 15 days,” Ellis said. “We’re not expecting that.”
With outages, many may pull out their generators.
“A portable generator should be at least 5 to 10 feet away from your home, your garage, the side of your home, an open window, all of these places are places that can enter your home and cause carbon monoxide poisoning,” said Chief Dave Tibbetts, with the Jefferson Parish Eastbank.
He’s reminding everyone to keep generators away from their homes because nearly half of the deaths linked to Hurricane Laura were caused by carbon monoxide poisoning from people using generators incorrectly.
“You’ll go to sleep, enter a deeper sleep, and the carbon monoxide will take your life,” he said.
That’s why it’s crucial to have carbon monoxide detector.
“People need to understand a smoke detector, unless it’s a combination detector, is not a carbon monoxide detector, it’s separate equipment,” Chief Tibbetts said. “It could save your life, no doubt about it.”
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