Entergy on Energy: Uncertain at This Time

What do you do when your city was hit by a hurricane, flooded by a levee breach, you don’t have electricity and the only power company in the area is bankrupt? You wait.

Here is the Entergy New Orleans Electric Restoration Progress update. Heavily flooded areas like Lakeview, West End, and Gentilly will get power completely back in 2-6 months. Parts of New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward: “Uncertain at this time.”

At a town hall meeting for the residents of those “uncertain” areas on Saturday, Dan Packer, CEO of Entergy N.O., said the pace of restoring energy will be slow.

Why will it be slow? Well, yeah, Katrina did some serious damage and the flooding didn’t help. But, as Packer pointed out, Entergy is bankrupt. It takes a bankrupt company longer to do things than a normal company.

That’s great. Entergy of N.O. has a monopoly in New Orleans. They are the only company working to fix the electricity in the city. And they are bankrupt.

People can’t get FEMA trailers on their property until they have water, sewerage, and electricity. A lot of them are just waiting on electricity. They want to get started rebuilding, but they can’t get back in the area to do it. There is not enough housing and they won’t get a trailer until the power is back. Things are certainly uncertain at this time.