Rural Orange area gets service reliability make-over

Contract workers for Entergy Texas, Inc. are taking their vegetation management expertise to the Little Cypress community north of Orange where they will spend the next month working to help ensure service reliability in the area.

Work is scheduled to get underway this week and, weather permitting, continue for a month on a power line that originates from the Echo Substation on FM 1130. The power line is more than 16 miles long and serves 688 customers, including residential neighborhoods, schools and businesses.

The project boundaries include an area west of FM 1130 from Bear Path Road south to Clark Lane. Specialized equipment, tractors, bucket trucks and manual work will be involved in the effort.

Those who travel in the area are asked to take note of work areas and drive with caution.

“All of our power lines, whether in densely populated cities or along rural county roads, are on a regular maintenance schedule,” said Johnny Trahan, customer service representative for the area. “It’s an example of how we invest in our system to reduce outages and help ensure a safe, reliable supply of power to our customers.”

Entergy Texas invests about $7 million per year in its vegetation management program, trimming an average of 2,000 line miles annually.

Entergy Texas, Inc. provides electricity to more than 426,000 customers in 27 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy 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, including nearly 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation’s leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.