More than 100,000 customers across New Orleans and its surrounding areas experienced power outages, following a series of rolling blackouts yesterday that were resolved by Monday evening, according to WWLTV. Utility company Entergy and the regional power grid operator, MISO, collaborated to restore electricity after implementing mandatory outages to stabilize the grid and avoid a larger blackout.
The outages affected various parishes, including Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines. At the peak of the outage, the number of customers without power was reported at 52,268 in Orleans Parish and 36,204 in Jefferson Parish, as highlighted by FOX8. MISO issued the directive for a "load-shed," a deliberate power reduction to prevent overloading the system.
An Entergy representative explained the measure in a statement obtained by Nola.com, "Entergy Louisiana and Entergy New Orleans have started periodic power outages for its customers. The company is taking this action as directed by its reliability coordinator, MISO, as a last resort and in order to prevent a more extensive, prolonged power outage that could severely affect the reliability of the power grid." Customers were warned they might experience multiple outages during the period.
