Two days after a major power outage left more than 100,000 homes and businesses without electricity during a sweltering Memorial Day Weekend, local officials still have more questions than answers about what exactly caused the outage.
A local member of the Public Service Commission says the lack of answers is beyond frustrating.
"I can tell you who didn't screw up. It wasn't Cleco, and it wasn't Entergy," Commissioner Eric Skrmetta said. "Entergy and Cleco did not lose any generation as a precursor to this event."
According Skrmetta, officials at the Midcontinent Independent System Operator are staying tight-lipped about the events that led to Sunday's brownout. Skrmetta says MISO told Entergy that the situation was "an emergency." He added that MISO gave the utility companies no more than 30 minutes to implement the power outage. That, Skrmetta says, left Entergy and the other utilities with no time to assess where they could shed some of the electrical load.
"I had a conversation with someone from MISO, and they said that a power plant had gone out, and I said, 'Who?' And they said, 'I can't tell you,' and that's where the spears started to get washed with blood," Skrmetta said. "That's not an acceptable answer to this commissioner, because when we're managing an event, you can't tell me that you can't tell me."
Now, Skrmetta says Louisiana may be better off controlling its own electrical grid or, at the very least, joining another regional transmission organization.
"At this point, I'm suggesting that we make a hard decision to abandon MISO and work towards our own energy independence," Skrmetta said.
Skrmetta says he and the Public Service Commission will find out what happened on Sunday one way or another.
"I told them you're going to be under subpoena at the next meeting, you're going to sit at the microphone, and you're going to explain everything," Skrmetta said. "In the meantime, we've activated our attorneys and, basically, our economist that investigate the MISO system."
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