Entergy 2005 Annual Report Download - page 22

RITA
At 2:30 a.m. on September 24, Hurricane Rita hit
the Gulf Coast, just east of Sabine Pass, Texas, near
the Texas-Louisiana border, with wind speeds of
120 mph. Hurricane force winds were sustained
more than 150 miles inland and tropical storm force
winds were felt as far north as the Arkansas border.
At landfall, the storm surge reached 15 feet, flooding
coastal towns across the border region.
In New Orleans, the storm surge topped eight
feet, breaching temporary repairs to levees
damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Some flooding
occurred in the city, though much less than that
caused by Katrina.
As of 2 p.m., 611,000 customers in Louisiana,
Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi were without
power due to Rita. More than 7,000 linemen and
support workers began the restoration effort.
SEPTEMBER 25
Assessments revealed that Rita caused extensive
damage to infrastructure in Texas and Louisiana.
Fourteen generation units were damaged and taken
off-line. More than 3,800 miles of transmission
lines and 443 substations were knocked out of
service. More than 43,800 miles of distribution
circuits were out and nearly 11,500 distribution
poles were down. All transmission connections
from Lafayette, Louisiana west to Conroe, Texas
were severed.
At peak outages, more than 800,000 customers
were without power due to Rita. Three days of rolling
blackouts began for 142,000 customers in Texas.
Restoration efforts grew to include approximately
13,000 tool workers from 33 states and 4,500
support personnel. Temporary solutions were
implemented that took great ingenuity and skill.
For example, for 23 days, a 119 MW load was
served from the ERCOT grid for the first time ever.
WEEK OF OCTOBER 3
Transmission paths were established to seven of
the ten refineries Entergy serves in the Beaumont/
Port Arthur, Lake Charles, and New Orleans areas.
Power outages at these refineries – whose aggregate
capacity is more than 2.2 million barrels per day –
caused a major disruption in U.S. fuel supplies. In a
high priority effort, the restoration team remained
in constant contact with each of these customers,
ready to provide power to meet site-specific
start-up schedules. Service was also restored to two
Department of Energy Strategic Petroleum
Reserve sites.
OCTOBER 15
Forty-seven days and two hurricanes later,
restoration of service was completed. All customers
who were able to accept power had power. In total,
more than 30,000 linemen and support workers
had been deployed in one of the largest hurricane
restoration efforts in U.S. history.
As out-of-state workers headed home, many
Entergy employees realized fully for the first time
that they had no home left. After nearly two
months of exhausting, non-stop emergency response,
our company and our employees began the work
of rebuilding our business and our lives.
RECOVERY: A COMPLEX EQUATION
While additional restoration work remained,
particularly in the hard-hit areas of New Orleans,
efforts shifted at the end of 2005 to recovery.
Entergy came through the storms intact and in
many respects stronger than before. Yet there
were lives to be rebuilt, costs to recover, and
financial reserves to restore.
ENTERGY CORPORATION AND SUBSIDIARIES 2005
Continued from page 15
Service territory outages
in thousands of square miles
41
79
120
Katrina
Rita
Total
Together, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
caused power outages across
approximately 120,000 square miles in
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas,
impacting our entire service territory.