Entergy officials admitted to New Orleans City Council members Tuesday that they made a "mistake" and shut off more power than was necessary during the blackouts last week, WWL is reporting.
The company said it cut more than three times the power than was required, leaving nearly 26,000 people in the dark and without heat for almost two hours. Entergy said it shut off 81 megawatts of power to the city after it was asked to shed just 26 megawatts, the station reports.
WWL also reports that the outages also shut off power to the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans’ pumps that pull water from the Mississippi River. Backup generators restored power, but S&WB executive director Ghassan Korban had to call Entergy to remind them how critical those pumps are to the city. It took about 45 minutes for the S&WB to restart the water intake pumps using generators. That avoided any impact on the city's drinking water, but a similar problem in 2018 led to a boil water advisory that lasted for days.
We've reached out to Entergy to see if they made the same "mistake" over here in southwest/south central Louisiana. We'll update this story when we hear back.
To read WWL's complete story, click here.
