The New Orleans City Council grilled Entergy New Orleans today after learning that the utility's rolling blackouts in the winter storm last week went far beyond what was required.
"Guys you're killing me here. I'm just gonna be honest," Council President Helena Moreno told the utility. "We left people out in the cold then that didn't need to be left in the cold."
Councilman Jay Banks added, "I am just sitting here just seething and bewildered."
"I really want to understand," Councilman Joe Giarrusso pleaded.
This all came after the council learned this morning that Entergy New Orleans turned off 81 megawatts of the city's electrical grid, when they were only required to shut off 26 megawatts.
Moreno said the error didn't only leave families without heat, but took money out of the pockets of businesses.
"Businesses shut down that evening. There were restaurants full of people because it was the evening of Mardi Gras. They were finally able to make some money during this pandemic.... that had to shut down because they lost power and customers walked out of their businesses."
Her demands for answers were met by silence.
"Somebody has got to say something, and everybody can't look at everybody else and wonder." Councilman Banks then said, "Explain what happened and why it did, because this is totally unacceptable."
His calls for answers were also met with no response.
"I'm hearing crickets," Banks added.
Finally Entergy New Orleans President and CEO David Ellis told the council, "That's part of the postmortem we are performing... we will provide you with those answers. We don't have those detailed answers today."
The council is calling for an investigation.
