Entergy 2005 Annual Report Download - page 16

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Our mission is to safely provide our
customers with clean, affordable, and
reliable power. We do this through our
utilities and our nuclear business – both businesses
where we believe we have the strategies,
organization, and talent to be the best-in-class.
We use market knowledge and sophisticated
analysis to develop fundamental points of view on
the many issues that shape our industry. We
operate our businesses in conformance with those
points of view, adapting as conditions change.
Each year we invest in our infrastructure and
enhance our processes in order to improve our
performance on key measures like customer service
and reliability, operating efficiency, safety, and
environmental impact.
Since we live in an imperfect world, we plan
and prepare for contingencies and disasters.
We run scenarios, conduct drills, and test response
procedures. We are experienced in emergency
restorations, having won either the Edison Electric
Institute Emergency Assistance Award or Emergency
Response Award for eight consecutive years – every
year that the awards have been offered by the
association. Entergy is the only utility in the nation
to have done so.
All of this to say, our operations are well-run.
Our infrastructure is well-maintained. Our people
are talented and experienced. As a company,
Entergy is prepared. Yet we learned in 2005 that
nature has the power to test the very limits of
even the most prepared among us.
KATRINA
It began on August 23rd with a tropical depression
– the twelfth of the season – in the southeastern
Bahamas that would become Hurricane Katrina.
As the storm later crossed southern Florida in just
seven hours and gathered strength in the Gulf of
Mexico, we began pre-staging crews and supplies
to prepare for a hit on the Gulf Coast.
On Sunday morning, August 28th, Katrina reached
maximum wind speeds of more than 170 mph – a
massive Category 5 storm of unprecedented size
that threatened much of Louisiana and Mississippi
as well as surrounding states.
AUGUST 29
In the early morning, Katrina barreled ashore near
Buras, Louisiana, about 60 miles southeast of
New Orleans. It caused incredible destruction with
125 mph winds at its core and tropical storm
force winds reaching along the coast from central
Louisiana, across Mississippi and Alabama to
western Florida. Roughly 90,000 square miles were
affected by Katrina – an area approximately the size
of Great Britain. Winds caused extensive damage to
southeastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf
Coast. The city of New Orleans survived the initial
hit with only moderate wind damage. Then came
the storm surge.
With the third lowest barometric pressure ever
recorded in a U.S. hurricane, Katrina brought a
massive storm surge that caused extensive flooding.
In New Orleans, the levee system that protects
the city from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi
River was breached. Water from the lake drained
into the city, flooding at least 80 percent of the
greater New Orleans area, causing widespread
devastation, and rendering the city and our
headquarters offices uninhabitable. As of 4 p.m.,
990,000 Entergy customers were without power, by
far the largest number in the company’s history.
Taking the Test of a Lifetime
ENTERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES 2005