NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana — The question for many of us in Southeast Louisiana after Hurricane Zeta is: When is the power coming back on? Gov. John Bel Edwards said on Thursday he doesn’t believe it will take weeks.
“I hesitate to offer any guesstimate right now. It doesn't look there's a tremendous amount of damage to the transmission line those are the hardest lines to repair, especially if you have the very large towers that are damaged or destroyed,” Edwards said.
That said, the days following Hurricane Zeta will be crucial for local and state election officials. The category two storm knocked out power and caused damage across the region. That includes polling stations which are supposed to host voters in one of the most anticipated presidential elections in recent history.
“The voters in Southeast Louisiana where you currently don't have electricity and especially where you don't have electricity and significant amount of structural damage, you need to be paying attention to the Secretary of State and to local officials," Edwards said.
In a statement Thursday, Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin said widespread power outages are the biggest challenge. He added “We will have a more thorough grasp of the damage to individual polling places over the next 24 to 48 hours.”
There are 122 polling places in Orleans Parish. Arthur Morrell, the Clerk of Criminal Court, says they’re trying to assess the damage at those locations.
He says in the event one of those stations has to be moved, it would be up to the city council to decide where to move it to.
With just days before the election, Morell says the option of using the Smoothie King Center as a mega voting site is on the table.
The State already had an elections task force to ensure proper elections in Southwest Louisiana, which recently got hit by back to back to storms. That task force will now have to do the same in Southeast Louisiana.
“As we get closer to Tuesday, obviously a determination is going to have to be made whether they're going to be able to power those locations up or not and that has to be in advance to Tuesday,” Edwards said.
We reached out to the clerk of court in Jefferson Parish, but didn’t get a reply. The Orleans clerk of criminal court says voting machines are backed up by batteries in the event power is knocked out.
He also says auxiliary power supplies can be brought to polling places if they lack adequate power.
Early voting in Louisiana is breaking records with more than 1 million people casting ballots already. To make sure everyone is able to vote, election officials must first make sure they have the physical power to do so.
