Entergy and Terrebonne Parish Utility Director Answers Council Concerns

Entergy representatives updated the Terrebonne Parish Council on the process and status of getting streetlights restored in Terrebonne.

Councilman Steve Trosclair presented a discussion and possible action relative to street lights and decorative lighting poles at last night’s Parish Council meeting. The councilman asked questions about streetlights that have been out since the storm and who maintain decorative lighting poles in certain areas. “It’s my understanding, and correct me if I’m wrong, that Entergy provides power up to the point where it leaves their system to the pole…from that point, the parish is responsible for the light fixture, the pole, and the wire up to the pedestal where it gets it power. If that’s the case, it’s ok, I can deal with that, but we have to be more efficient.” Not only is he dealing with issues on his street, but he mentioned many examples of poles down in multiple neighborhoods. “I don’t know what it’s going to take or how we’re going to do it, but I would like to see Entergy and the parish get together some kind of way and put something out so we can make one phone call,” he said.

Al Galindo from Entergy’s Customer Service Organization presented to the Parish Council with some answers. He agreed that Entergy and the city need a better connection in communication when it comes to damaged streetlights and poles. He cleared up the confusion about decorative poles and explained that if the pole is in a subdivision, the lights are typically paid for by the parish, which Entergy considers customer-owned lights. Entergy provides the electric service to the primary feed point for the light, and then from that feed point, connected to illuminate the light. This means the parish is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of those fixtures.

Entergy serves the South, Southeast, and Western parts of Louisiana. It’s been five-plus months since Hurricane Ida made landfall and Galindo reported there were 30,000 poles damaged across Louisiana which is double the amount of poles lost during Hurricane Laura. It is also more than the combined number of Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, Delta, and Zeta. There are 1.16 million poles in Entergy Louisiana service territory and 3 percent of the poles were damaged in which they own 890,000 of those poles. The remaining poles are owned by ATT&T and other entities. In Terrebonne Parish, there are approximately 23,000 Entergy poles they own for electric distribution in the parish. In addition, there are around 7,300 poles AT&T along with other entities own. They lost roughly 3,300 poles due to Ida which is around 14 percent of the total poles. Galindo further explained the process of getting the poles in working order.

The first and foremost thing they do is to make sure they restore power quickly and safely. Permanent repairs are then made after restoration, “We don’t necessarily repair all of the streetlights as the power is being restored, “ he said,” Because our job is to try to get everybody back up with electrical service as quickly as possible.” Once permanent repairs are complete, Entergy goes back to properties to remove leftover debris such as discarded poles and wires. He reminded the council that there is a process to it especially when they are removing facilities such as transformers that fall from poles because they have to make sure they are removed environmentally safe. He transitioned into streetlight repairs which have been a question by the council for quite some time.

He reported it took them about three months to get all of the electric services running across the system which is where their crews have been focusing on. They realized they had more streetlights out, but didn’t know exactly how many, which led them to hire a third-party company to conduct an assessment of damages they have on their mapping system in November and December. The assessment was completed right before Christmas which revealed 59 percent of the streetlights, both parish-owned and Entergy-owned, were found to be damaged or not found. They bill the parish for approximately 8,386 streetlights on the bills, so what are they going to do about the issue?

Galindo said they initiated a request for a proposal to bring on additional contractors because they know they have to have the resource to make the repairs. They already have baseload contractors that were starting to repair lights, but they are in the process of bringing on two additional contracting companies to help with streetlight repairs.

He shared that it took around a month to get the proposal out because of how difficult it is to find contractors that have the set of skills it takes to do the job safely. They originally estimated the streetlights would be fixed by the end of this quarter, but it has since been moved to sometime in the second quarter. Moving forward, their goal is not to do individual parishes, but rather multiple parishes at the same time, because multiple parishes are having the same issue.

Galindo has asked the operations crews to give weekly updates of where the contractors are going so they can share proactively with the Parish Council so constituents know where they are working. As far as streetlight bill credits to the parish due to being billed despite having power outages, he reassured the Council that they are being credited for September because the parish had no electricity the entirety of the month. The company is also looking at October through December bills to issue credits based on the assessments that were done in November and December. “It’s a little bit cumbersome for the billing process, but I have taken it under my manager or vice- president’s advisement to get it done,” he said. They have also paused the billing for streetlights so they can get the credits in place and advised them to ignore any disconnect notices because they have coded the accounts to not take any action. They will not return to normal billing until all of the credits have been applied to the parish streetlight accounts.

On the parish side, Terrebonne Utilities Director Earnest Brown said they have also noticed that they have various street lights out and they have been working on the issues alongside Entergy. The parish has sent Entergy parade routes along with “hot spots” for them to start working on. Brown said the parish has upgraded all of the lights from downtown, St. Charles Street, Main Street, and Barrow Street, to LED during the Christmas parade. They have some “hot spots” with decorative lights on Main Street that they will have to get light towers to assist during upcoming parades.

The department has been conducting surveys in Southern Estates and the Sugarwood area to get a count of decorative lights so they can place an order. It was then brought up by the council that areas “down the bayou” also need to be surveyed and taken care of, and getting poles off of the ground that are in residents’ yards. Brown responded that typically if it is in the Entergy service area, they are notified first, and then they correspond with the parish via email. From there, they dispatch a work order. He said they will start to send trucks to the problem areas to pick up the poles and get a headstart on repairs.