BusinessReport.com

(BATON ROUGE) – Cox Greater Louisiana has successfully repaired unprecedented damage to our communities. Over the past two days, the company has found solutions to widespread outages including using generators at the node (substation) level to self-generate power. This enables customers, also on generators, to receive a signal at their home and services if their lines are not damaged.

Five Acadiana parishes have reached 100% service to the node:

Acadia, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Martin and Vermilion. Cox has also reached 97% in St. Mary. Significant increases have also been made across the Baton Rouge service area.

Our continuing focus is on customers and restoring service quickly and safely. Here is our status as of 9 a.m. today.

Technicians have repaired service to regional service nodes. The percentage of customer nodes in operation are (numbers in parentheses indicate change from yesterday at 9 a.m.):

Acadiana Region:

--Acadia - 100%

--Iberia – 100% (+20%)

--Lafayette - 100% (+1%)

--St. Martin - 100% (+20%)

--St. Mary - 97% (+27%)

--Vermilion - 100%

Baton Rouge Region:

--Ascension & St. James – 34% (+29%)

--East & West Baton Rouge and East Feliciana – 36% (+19%)

--Iberville - 83% (+80%)

--Livingston – 44 (+15%)

The storm also damaged individual customer drops. We are repairing them as quickly as possible.

In spite of power outages, our technical staff has tested the use of a generator to reconnect to services:

First, plug your computer, television, digital converter and modem into the generator.

Second, connect your corded phone and computer directly to your modem phone jacks.

If the Cox lines to your neighborhood and house are in tact, you should receive services.

Service centers are open across both markets from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In the Baton Rouge region:

--Cox’s main office on Florida Blvd.

--Gonzales

--Denham Springs

--Baker (8 a.m. until 12 noon)

In Acadiana:

--Lafayette

--Crowley

--Abbeville

--St. Martinville

If the LSU Union reopens on Monday, that service center will also reopen.

While cable communications generally rely on power because cable lines share utility poles with electrical lines, by utilizing generators Cox is able to connect customers before the power companies.

Our local crews of employees and contractors are working with repair crews from our sister Cox Communications systems across the nation to connect customers. Crews are working from dusk to dawn daily.

We continue to urge customers -- use safety in their clean-up efforts. If lines are down, do not touch them. Professionals from Cox and local utility companies will move and repair any broken cable and utility lines.

Baton Rouge and Acadiana customers can check on service restoration by calling Cox representatives at (877) 556-7815.