METAIRIE, La. — Approximately 11,000 buildings, mostly in Jefferson and St. Charles parishes, were without power early Friday, according to the Entergy outage map.
The map showed that most of those buildings had power restored before or by 11 a.m.
The outages came after some strong storms swept through the area around midnight. WWL-TV Meteorologist Payton Malone said the storms brought some high winds - the highest in the area being around 70 mph on Ship Island in Mississippi.
A spectacular lightning show was captured by Jay Vise of Second Harvest in Metairie, right around midnight.
The outages were in various pockets, including near the airport in Kenner, a couple of blocks area near the lakefront in Metairie between Causeway and Clearview, and some in Jefferson near Ochsner. In all, around 8,700 buildings were out of power in Jefferson and another 800 in St. Charles. There were a few other outages scattered among other parishes.
Not all of the restoration times are listed, but those that are list a restoration time around noon, making for a tough start Friday for many.
Payton Malone said that another round of storms could materialize around 11 a.m. but they shouldn't last as long or be as severe as those that came in the early morning. After that, temperatures will get to at or near 90 degrees, meaning that power restoration is key as the heat will be on.
The weather has cooperated mostly for Jazz Fest, which has returned after a two-year absence due to COVID. Some showers last weekend caused a 30-minute delay in opening, but otherwise it has been relatively weather-free.