NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she still has no timeline for when power will be restored to the city, but restoration efforts will be focused on immediate needs like powering hospitals.
City officials said Tuesday that Entergy is still assessing all eight transmission lines in the city, looking to find ways to spread power currently available from power plants to the rest of the city. Ramsey Green, the city's infrastructure chief, said Entergy does not need all eight transmission lines to be operational, just "some of them," and the company is looking into which lines can be fixed quickly.
Entergy is expected to give more details about the restoration efforts on Tuesday afternoon.
Sources tell the Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate that Entergy told City Council members that some power could be restored to the city as early as Wednesday night. The source told the newspaper that Entergy did not say how much power would be available, or even how the company would get that power to the city.
Louisiana communities battered by Hurricane Ida are now dealing with the possibility of weeks without power in the stifling, late-summer heat. Ida ravaged the region’s power grid, leaving 1 million people and businesses in Louisiana without power, including the entire City of New Orleans and almost all of southeast Louisiana.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.