Jan Wesner Childs
People
trying to reach their homes in Cameron Parish drive past downed power
lines after the passing of Hurricane Laura south of Lake Charles,
Louisiana, on Aug. 28, 2020.It will cost up to $1.4 billion to repair most of the power outages caused by Hurricane Laura in Louisiana, according to the state's largest and most widely affected power company.
Entergy, which provides electricity to more than 1 million customers in Louisiana, said Tuesday that the storm destroyed more than 14,000 distribution poles, some 4,800 transformers and more than 300 substations.
"Hurricane Laura inflicted catastrophic damage on Entergy’s transmission and distribution systems that resulted in approximately 600,000 outages at its peak and impacted more than 900,000 customers in total," Rod West, Entergy Utility Group President, said in a news release.
(MORE: All the Records the 2020 Hurricane Season Has Broken So Far)
The company estimated repair costs in Louisiana would run between $1.25 billion and $1.4 billion. Damage from Laura in Texas is expected to cost between $230 million and $260 million.
Some of the costs could be paid for with federal funds, nola.com reported.
The repairs in Louisiana are Entergy's largest restoration effort ever, with more than 25,000 workers deployed from 31 states and more than 200 other companies assisting, the company said.
Nearly all the outages from Laura have been restored. As of Thursday morning, there were still 8,335 homes and businesses without power in Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us. About 3,500 of those were Entergy customers. The rest are covered by smaller utility companies.
The company said the remaining customers who are able to take power will be restored by Sept. 30. Work to repair the rest of the outages, including homes and businesses that are too severely damaged to currently have power restored, will continue through November.
(MORE: What Can Happen in the Last Two Months of Hurricane Season)
Hurricane Laura made landfall as a Category 4 storm Aug. 27 in Southwest Louisiana, packing winds up to 150 mph that toppled power lines and trees, tore roofs off homes and blew windows out of buildings as it moved inland, especially in the Lake Charles area. The storm's surge caused extensive flooding in areas including Cameron Parish, where it came ashore.
Laura was one of four weather events in August that made NOAA's list of billion-dollar disasters. CoreLogic, a company that tracks real estate and insurance data, estimated the storm's insured losses in Louisiana at between $8 billion and $12 billion.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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