53°
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
7 Day Forecast
Follow our weather team on social media

Entergy to use drones, large storm team to restore outages during Cristobal

3 years 9 months 2 weeks ago Sunday, June 07 2020 Jun 7, 2020 June 07, 2020 8:50 PM June 07, 2020 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE – As Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, Entergy officials say they have more than 2,000 crews standing by in case some residents lose power.

“We've positioned those resources in south Louisiana where we think most of the damage is going to be,” said Melonie Stewart, Entergy Louisiana vice president of customer service.

Stewart says the storm will bring high winds and potentially high water so the company will be bringing out special equipment to asses the damage.

“We do have about 40 drones and pilots too to fly those drones over the area and give us the intelligence we need to understand the damages and how we need to deploy our resources,” said Stewart.

Crews began responding to power outages early Sunday morning in southeast Louisiana, and they'll continue to as Cristobal makes its way through the state. Though getting power restored may take longer than normal.

“This pandemic has introduced additional challenges,” said Stewart.

Following CDC guidelines, Entergy is having all employees social distance, which prevents crews to work right next to each other.

“One crew member needs to finish in an area before the next crew member can get in. That just slows us down a little bit, but were getting better as we go,” said Stewart. “We're going to try to restore power as quickly and as safely as possible, but the more prepared our customers are the more they are able to tolerate longer outages."

Entergy is asking people to stay away from downed power lines once the storm passes, and keep away from the crews on scene to maintain social distancing.

More News

Desktop News

Click to open Continuous News in a sidebar that updates in real-time.
Radar
7 Days