By KEVIN CHIRI
Editor and Publisher

LAPLACE – Don’t expect to put your generator back in storage too soon, according to Entergy Customer Relations Director Sheila Butler.

The St. John Parish spokeswoman for Entergy told L’Observateur late on Tuesday that her department is still in the process of assessing where all the damage is from Hurricane Gustav, and she is reluctant to give any firm promises at this early stage about just when everyone will get their power back on.

Butler said that power was knocked out completely from St. John and St. James parishes, while reports about St. Charles Parish were still incomplete as of press time. However initial reports on St. Charles also indicated a near total loss of power.

Butler said that Entergy is again bringing “hundreds” of crews in to help with the work, but declined to state exactly when St. John residents could expect to have power on at their houses.

“Our priorities are to do the hospital first (River Parishes and St. James), followed by the nursing homes and all emergency responders,” she said. “But as much as I know everyone wants a firm answer on when they will get power on, we just can’t say much—it’s still so early. We will have a better idea in a couple of days.”

Butler had two meetings with St. John Parish officials on Tuesday, but said that as of that early point following

(See POWER, pg. 3A)

 Hurricane Gustav’s hit here on Monday, her crews were still in the assessment stage.

“The first thing we have to do is go all around the parishes and assess exactly where the damage is, and how bad it is,” she explained. “But we have lost power completely in St. John and St. James. That is a tremendous loss of power.”

Butler did give some detail about the biggest problem, noting that some major damage had occurred to their transmission central regions.

“We have some major problems with our transmission lines, and that requires extra work to rebuild,” she said.

Entergy had over 825,000 outages throughout the Louisiana and Mississippi service area from the storm, ranking Gustav as the second most destructive storm in Entergy’s 95-year history. Clearly it was Katrina, with 1.1 million outages, that ranked number one.

Additionally, as Butler pointed out, there were 191 transmission lines and 210 substations that were taken out of service.

“This will be a marathon, not a sprint,” Entergy President and CEO Renae Conley said about the repair job ahead. “We’re restoring power as quickly and safely as we can, but this recovery will take weeks. Progress will be visible as we move forward, but customers in areas that have sustained the most significant damage should prepare to be without power for an extended period of time.”

A team of 9,000 restoration workers was initially staged outside of Gustav’s impact zone and are now en-route, or have already arrived, on different scenes to assist in the repairs.

“Even though we will focus on priority areas first, then work on local businesses, it does not mean residents won’t get power back to their home soon,” Butler said. “It all depends where you live and if you happen to be within a grid that gets repaired.”

Customers are still being encouraged to call and report their outages 1-800-9OUTAGE. (1-800-968-8243.)