More than 10,000 without power in New Orleans after bird reportedly causes power outage
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — An outage left approximately 10,000 people in New Orleans without power, electric company Entergy reported on Wednesday morning.
Officials say the outage occurred just after 9 a.m. The Entergy outage map included areas in Central City, the Warehouse District, and Downtown.
An estimated 11,800 people were affected.
City Council President Helena Moreno tweeted about the issue, saying it "seems that it was a bird (again) that knocked out the Derbigny Substation." Entergy later told WGNO that while crews continue to investigate the outage, it is believed an animal did cause the issue.
Just after 12 p.m., the company announced on Twitter that the power has been restored for more than 9,000 customers in the CBD. Entergy says crews remain in the Central Business District and continue to work to resolve the issue.
"We're working to restore power to the approximately 300 remaining customers quickly and safely. We will continue to update impacted customers with estimated times of restoration as damage assessments continue."
Entergy New Orleans
The company has asked residents without power to report it by calling 1(800)368-3749. A spokesperson told WGNO they may be able to do some fixing on the back end to help restore the power more quickly.
It was another day in the dark for Forrest Blakeman who works at the 24/7 Discount on Tulane & Claiborne Avenues.
"I came to work and don't know if the power's going to be on or off. I can't really do anything, trying to stock shelves, can't sell gas. We are cash only," he said.
Today's power outage caused headaches for drivers and at intersections, where drivers treated it as a four-way stop. Bird or no bird, folks like Forrest just want these frequent power outages to stop.
"One bird, maybe if they say a whole flock of birds. If it is a bird they should be able to get it on quick and not have to wait 8 or 9 hours. It is ridiculous that this seems to happen every two or three months. Something is up," Blakeman said.