Cleco Power warned late Wednesday that more than 20,000 customers likely will remain without power overnight, after fierce storms hit Louisiana and a tornado wreaked extensive damage in the Slidell area.
By late afternoon, about 140,000 customers remained without power statewide, according to Power Outage US, which tracks all the electricity providers in Louisiana and other states.
Cleco Power, whose customers mostly are located on the northshore, reported that about 44,500 of its customers had lost power during the storm.
“Damage assessment and power restoration efforts are in full gear,” Clint Robichaux, director of distribution operations and reliability, said in an emailed statement late Wednesday.
Cleco said it expects to have power restored to all affected areas tonight except for 23,000 customers in the Slidell and Pearl River areas, 3,500 customers in Opelousas, 150 customers in Eunice and 35 customers in Rosepine.
The Washington-St. Tammany Electric Cooperative said 9,228 of its customers in St. Tammany had lost power. The utility's outage map showed most of those outages were in the Slidell area, where a strong thunderstorm had slammed across the area and a tornado touched down.
Entergy, which accounts for about 1.3 million customers across the state, had about 47,000 without power late in the day. That was down from a peak of around 90,000 during the storms.
The Entergy outages were widespread, but the hardest hit customers were in Calcasieu, St. Landry and East Baton Rouge parishes, which together had about 23,000 still without power late in the day.
Entergy didn't have an estimate for when power would be restored to the bulk of those customers.
The New Orleans area south of Lake Pontchartrain had just 350 with no power after peaking earlier in the day at just below 5,000.
Power Outage US also showed smaller providers, including Beauregard Electric Cooperative, Southwest Louisiana EMC and Dixie Electric Membership Corporation, had significant outages. They totaled more than 55,000 late Wednesday.
Entergy spokesman Scardigli said crews were sent out to making repairs as soon as it was safe to do so. "The most dangerous part of any storm is just after it has passed," he said. "We want to remind everyone to stay away from downed power lines and areas of debris."
Entergy crews found that high winds downed trees and limbs and damaged structures and blew vegetation and debris into roadways as well as Entergy's electric equipment, Scardigli added.
"Tree trimmers and lineworkers are working in tandem — from Monroe to Lake Charles, Baton Rouge and New Orleans — to clear trees and limbs and repair or, in some cases, replace equipment like crossarms and transformers that are beyond repair," he said.