The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Following the largest restoration effort in its history, Entergy Texas, Inc. today announced power has been restored to 100 percent of the customers who can safely take power following the devastation of Hurricane Ike.

The storm made landfall in Galveston Sept. 13 and cut a swath throughout Southeast Texas. It caused outages to 99 percent of Entergy Texas’ 395,000 customers, leaving some 392,600 in the dark. Ike’s storm surge inundated coastal areas, severely flooding communities from Orange County southeast to Bolivar Peninsula.

A week later, Entergy Texas had restored power to 57 percent of those left in the dark by Ike. The restoration percentage reached 100 percent today, Thursday, Sept. 25, only twelve days after the storm.

“The Hurricane Ike restoration will go down in our company’s history books as a mammoth undertaking,” said Joe Domino, president and chief executive officer, Entergy Texas, Inc. “I’m incredibly proud of the capable, competent people who work for Entergy here in Texas and in our other operating companies that provided us so much support.

“And I am equally grateful to our customers in Southeast Texas for their patience during trying times.”

From an equipment standpoint, Hurricane Ike created more damage for Entergy Texas than Hurricane Rita which made landfall at the Sabine River in September 2005.

Texas Outage, Damage Comparisons : Rita vs. Ike Outages & Items Damaged or Destroyed Hurricane Rita - 2005 Hurricane Ike - 2008 Number of customer outages 287,000 392,600 Transmission lines 179 186 Substations 238 282 Distribution Poles 8,454 10,300 Distribution Transformers 1,692 2,600 Seven days after Hurricane Rita, Entergy Texas had restored 40 percent of those left without power.

After Ike, restoration seven days later stood at about 57 percent.

The company has identified about 7,300 customers who are not capable of receiving power at this time. Those customers are mostly located in the coastal communities of High Island and along the Bolivar Peninsula. Many homes or businesses there received substantial structural or flood damage and will need significant reconstruction before they can take power.

Domino says that Entergy Texas will not abandon those customers. “We are at work on a plan to rebuild our electric infrastructure in those areas where customers’ facilities were so damaged they are unable to receive power. We are committed to delivering the power to help our customers rebuild their communities and their lives.”

Entergy Texas, Inc. is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States.

Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.