BATON ROUGE - Trees, limbs, and debris continue to cause power outages and other inconveniences around the capital area from the winter storm, but both the city and Entergy say they are working to resolve the problem.

Republic Services began collecting woody waste Wednesday, Feb. 17 in its routine pickup. On Friday, the City-Parish activated DRC Emergency Services to assist with trimming hanging tree limbs that are affecting roadways before collecting storm debris.

In addition to those efforts, the Department of Maintenance continues to clear trees from roadways and will assist in debris collection once that task has been completed.

The City-Parish is also working with utility companies to collect the debris they remove in their efforts to restore power.

Entergy says they are prioritizing power restoration for those who have been without since the beginning of the week.

Next in line are the areas with the most wide-spread outages affecting large groups of customers.

Entergy spokesperson David Freese says they are doing their best to get the lights back on quickly and safely.

He says an ongoing issue that they are continuously seeing is related to cold load pickup.

"When faults are cleared, the initial load from all the heaters turning on at once is damaging transformers and other assets. To the extent possible, we are staggering the load additions to protect the assets but, in some instances, it has not only slowed progress but also led to recurring outages for the same customers. Multiple apartment complexes in the Baton Rouge and the Denham Springs area have seen this effect," Freese said.