The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Red and green enhance Entergy outage maps

The holidays may be over, but traditional colors of red and green have new meaning to Entergy, Texas customers. In December, the company enhanced its View Outages Web site to show street-by-street where power is on or off.

“This detailed view of power availability is rare among power companies,” said Vernon Pierce, customer service director. “Instead of showing a general area where power may be out, this new view shows customers exactly whether power is available on a given street.”

View Outages can be found at http://www.entergy.com. Customers choose the utility company where they live, such as Entergy, and are taken to a map showing the power status for the area.

Green lines show power is on at the street; red lines show power is off at the street. Customers may zoom in to a street level view to see the power status where they live or work, or perhaps where their children attend school.

“Entergy’s red / green outage restoration maps were well-received with media and the public during hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and again during Gustav and Ike,” Pierce said, “but they did not show street names. We have added the popular red/green feature to View Outages so everyone will have the benefit of easily seeing where power is on.”

Entergy’s ability to show street-by-street power status is leading-edge capability among electric utilities. Most show outages as general shaded areas, as did Entergy’s older system.

“This new capability shows customers exactly where power is available,” Pierce added. “But it is important that customers remember that conditions or damage at their location may prevent them from receiving power, even though the map shows it is available on their street.”

When customers access View Outages through http://www.entergy.com, Entergy urges them to register for My Account Online to take advantage of Entergy’s online account transaction feature. Through My Account Online, customers may view and print their Entergy bills, see their billing history, sign up for automatic monthly payments or help the environment by receiving Entergy bills by e-mail and stopping paper bills.