Power Outages Plague New Orleans

June 29, 2006 — -- With temperatures regularly climbing into the 90s and straining New Orleans' power supply, the fragility of the storm-beaten utilities has started to show. Tuesday afternoon the lights suddenly went out on thousands of residents, and the lights stayed out for hours.

As power was restored to one area, it was lost in another, and power was lost again Wednesday.

"We need restoration of the infrastructure," said City Council member Cynthia Hedge-Morrell. "Right now, they are patching the holes, but sooner or later we'll run out of patches."

Entergy, the supplier of electricity to the region, is struggling to fix the problems without the money or resources it needs for a complete overhaul. The utility company once had backup stations that would protect against lengthy blackouts, but many of these sustained damage during Hurricane Katrina last August and remain offline. The result is that customers have to wait until repairs are made to the already strained stations before power returns.

Today City Council members on the city's utility committee urged the Louisiana Recovery Authority to help. The LRA is responsible for funding the Community Development Block Grants that will be awarded from the $4.2 billion coming to the state. Entergy, one of New Orleans' two Fortune 500 companies, has already asked for $718 million in federal financing to revamp the ailing power supply.

While some of the committee members worry about the negative impact the blackouts have on residents who are rebuilding their homes or living in FEMA trailers, City Council President Oliver Thomas is also worried about the populace that hasn't returned since Katrina.

"We need drastic improvement or people are not going to come home [without power] or if their rates are through the roof," he said.

The city's water supply is suffering from the same fate as the electricity. Extensive leaks in the system cost New Orleans hundreds of thousands of dollars. The city loses an estimated 80 million to 100 million gallons of potable water a day. On June 7 City Hall was shut down because of low water pressure, a problem that many residents also face.

"I don't think people know how devastated the infrastructure is," said Hedge-Morrell "Every time we think we're making headway, we discover something else."