weekly chart looks the goodies, page-3

sgt looks undamaged - ok!


** my conclusion at end .........re SGT

Entergy's goal: Sunday for restoring BR power


By WILL SENTELL
[email protected]
Capitol news bureau


Advocate staff photo by KENNETH WILKS
Entergy employees work on Friday to remove a tree that had fallen across Carrollton Avenue in Baton Rouge in order to fix a downed power line and restore electrical service to the neighborhood.
About 32,000 customers of Entergy Corp. in the Baton Rouge area operated without electrical power for the fifth day Friday in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Virtually all DEMCO customers without power in East Baton Rouge Parish should have been back on by the end of the day, officials said.

Bill Benedetto, regional manager for Entergy, said crews hope to have most power to the area restored by Sunday night but emphasized that is a goal, not a certainty.

"There are still going to be some small pockets or individual people that won't have it," Benedetto said. "We would hope to have the bulk of it" by Sunday.

Entergy has about 145,000 residential and business customers in the Baton Rouge area. About 90,000 customers were without power at the height of the outage on Monday after strong winds from Katrina hit the area.

Entergy has about 1 million customers in Louisiana. Those without power statewide total 585,247, Benedetto said. About 39,000 Baton Rouge area customers were without power Thursday evening.

Work crews on Friday were set to focus on at least 20 areas. The list includes homes near Bluebonnet and Jefferson; Broadmoor; the LSU area; Pollard Estates; north Sherwood Forest; Lobdell; and Ardenwood and Sullivan Road.

Some residential customers have complained of outages for several hours and longer after initial electric al power problems were resolved.

"Sometimes in restoring power we have to take a circuit out to do some work to get another circuit on," Benedetto said. "Sometime we get it hot (on) and there may be a tree limb on a line that has been weakened and it will take it out again."

Robin Keller, public relations manager for DEMCO, said Friday that virtually all of its customers in East Baton Rouge Parish without power should have had it restored by the end of the day. "That being said, there will still be some scattered outages," Keller said. "There could be as many as 100 customers without power, but the primary circuits should be back up by the end of the day (Friday) in East Baton Rouge."

The utility serves parts of East Baton Rouge, Ascension, Livingston, East Feliciana, West Feliciana, Tangipahoa and St. Helena parishes. About 75,000 customers were without electrical power at the peak of the problem on Monday, with 21,000 in East Baton Rouge Parish. About 17,000 customers lacked power Friday.
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**I have checked all the newspapers in Baton Rouge area and no water problems etc .,. only minor power disruption which should be all back to normal today. BR is becoming a tent city for survivors of New Orleans.