ENTY LOUI MB40 : Entergy Louisiana Restoring Power Following Severe Thunderstorms

BATON ROUGE, La. - Work crews are restoring power to Entergy Louisiana customers who lost service due to powerful thunderstorms that rolled across the state early Thursday morning, hitting the Arcadia, Jonesboro, Monroe, Ruston and Winnfield areas of north Louisiana particularly hard.

The crews are engaged in full-scale restoration efforts and will continue to safely work as quickly as possible until all power is restored. As of 2 p.m., some 10,000 of the nearly 15,500 affected north Louisiana customers were back in service, with approximately 5,200 customers remaining without power. While most customers without power are expected to be restored today, outages for some customers in the hardest-hit areas may extend into Friday evening. The company encourages customers to make sure their personal storm plans are in place.

"We realize that being without power is an inconvenience, especially with the hard freeze that is forecasted for our area tonight," said Jeff Aycock, regional customer service manager in West Monroe. "We encourage all customers to be prepared for the freeze in the event that their power has not yet been restored, and to stay safe and away from downed power lines."
Entergy crews began assessing damage and restoring power as soon as it was safe to do so following the storms. Customers should report downed or dangling power lines, poles or other damaged equipment to 1-800-9OUTAGE (1-800-968-8243). Customers should not walk in standing water or venture into areas of debris since power lines that could still be energized and dangerous may not be visible.

Online services are available to customers through "Entergy Storm Center," "myAccount" and "View Outages." Through myAccount, customers can sign up to send and receive text information about power outages through their cellphones. Customers can also receive alerts about outages at their homes and businesses. To use the service, customers must register a cellphone number to their Entergy account. Registration is simple. From any text-capable cell phone, send the message REG to 368374. The system will respond and ask for an Entergy account number and ZIP code.

Entergy's Louisiana utility companies serve more than one million customers through the operating companies Entergy Louisiana, LLC and Entergy Gulf States Louisiana, L.L.C. With operations in southern, central and northeastern Louisiana, the companies are part of Entergy Corporation's electric system serving 2.8 million customers in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

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