NEW ORLEANS — 3,500 Entergy customers in New Orleans East were without power for a time Monday because vandals tampered with a substation. That meant no A/C during the hottest August on record.
City Councilman at Large J.P. Morrell took to social media on Monday afternoon to warn Entergy customers of a 30-minute emergency outage that temporarily affected 3,500 customers in New Orleans East.
The outage was scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. for crews to repair a transformer at Entergy's Gulf Outlet substation. Morrell said the repair was required due to "extreme vandalism."
As of 5 p.m, the substation was back on line and power fully restored.
Earlier in the day, Entergy announced it would suspend disconnections for customers struggling to pay until after Gov. John Bel Edwards emergency heat declaration ends on Sept. 9.
Sam Mousa owns a gas station on Chef Menteur Highway. He says he lost power around 9 Monday morning and didn't get it back till 6:30pm that evening.
Mousa said, "We are a gas station so we sell gas - no gas today at all."
Hours of his day were spent working without air conditioning, during a month where temperatures hit record highs.
"Its very hard to work without AC... It get near around 110 inside that store," he said.
In a statement Entergy said, "We can confirm vandalism caused an emergency outage at a substation in New Orleans East impacting roughly 3,500 customers. The necessary repairs took those customers offline for approximately 20 minutes."
Entergy said it's at the Gulf Outlet Substation in New Orleans East that vandals broke in to. The company says they're unsure how they gained access to the property and what their intent was.
Isiah Jones lost power to his home. He says he's caring for his wife and had to try and keep her cool till power was restored.
Jones Told Eyewitness News, "You got elderly folks at home who can't bear this heat."
He's asking why, amid all the struggles this city is facing, would vandals want to cause grief to so many. "Its a shame to do that and you don't know how much pain and affliction you are bringing on thousands and thousands of other people
Mousa says Entergy needs to make sure this doesn't happen again," They need to do something, they need to hire security."
Entergy says the investigation is ongoing.
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