UPDATE: Cleco has restored power to 6,800 of the roughly 9,500 customers who experienced outages after strong storms in central Louisiana Monday afternoon, according to a post on Cleco's Facebook page.
Cleco has restored power to 72 percent of affected customers and are still working.
As of 4:30 p.m., roughly 2,700 customers were without power in Rapides Parish. The post says Cleco expects to restore power to half of those customers tonight and expect the remaining 1,400 customers to be without power overnight tonight.
Those 1,400 customers who should expect to be without power overnight are located in the Hwy 28 West, Grundy Cooper and Bayou Rapides areas of Alexandria, as well as areas of Pineville, Gardner, Boyce and Hot Wells.
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ORIGINAL STORY: Cleco crews have worked throughout the night to restore power to around 3,000 customers affected by Monday's severe storms in central Louisiana.
The power company reports that approximately 6,300 customers in Rapides Parish remain without power.
Crews began working on Monday following the storms to clear the damage left behind. In addition to local Cleco crews, crews from across the state were brought in to assess damage, clear and clean debris, and replace broken poles, cross arms and downed wires.
Cleco says crews are continuing to assess damage and bring customers back on line.
