Why does the power keep going out in Jefferson Parish?
That was the focus today at the parish council meeting.
"You see a lot of leaning poles, you see a lot of rotting poles... transformers that are buckling," Councilman Scott Walker said as he showed picture after picture of damaged and failing power infrastructure across Jefferson Parish.
Entergy's Michelle Bourg said they do care and do have a resiliency plan.
"We're turning our focus to making our system a more resilient system."
She outlined a plan that calls for action.
"Over the next three to four years, we will be replacing approximately 7,300 poles across this parish."
Bourg says that is in addition to the thousands they switched out after Hurricane Ida, three years ago.
She also admitted they have had a recent string of issues at electrical substations.
"All of those outages involved equipment... that performed or operated in a way the was unexpected."
Jefferson Parish
Bourg explained they were investigating those issues.
Walker read a list of recent outages that kept going and going.
"May 16th: 30,000 plus, May 23rd: 5,000, May 28th: 1,000 plus..."
He detailed some 20 outages already this year, and stressed that was not a complete list.
Louisiana Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis
"Louisiana has the 47th (least) reliable grid in the nation. That's unacceptable," he told the council.
Council members called for an independent review of the Entergy grid.
