The week got off to a rocky start on Monday when severe storms blew through the Baton Rouge area, causing widespread power outages, downed trees and electricity lines—but no reports of severe injuries or deaths.
As of today, Entergy was still restoring power to the last 2,700 of the roughly 30,000 customers who lost power during the storm. As Daily Report noted this week, Entergy work crews were run out of at least one Baton Rouge neighborhood by threats of violence Tuesday when they arrived to restore power to the area.
“We encountered incidents in one Baton Rouge neighborhood with violence. … Our linemen were run out of the neighborhood,” says Entergy spokeswoman Amber Ferchaud. “It’s something our linemen periodically encounter. People get upset. It’s not the first time this has happened.”
Meanwhile, registration is closing today on an LSU-sponsored trip to Cuba that is intended to give participants a thorough tour of the country and also an opportunity to meet with potential business contacts.
“It’s sort of a soft B-to-B trip” is how Doug Weimer, executive director of LSU Continuing Education, describes the trip to Daily Report. “Because there are still a lot of restrictions in place, we thought it was a little hard to do a real B-to-B trip, so what we packaged was kind of a soft trip with a lot of fun stuff, but where you might come across folks that will be good contacts down the road.”
The eight-day trip, which will take place from June 13-20, will include visits to several industrial and agricultural facilities, as well as tours of cigar factories, cultural and historical sites and noteworthy architectural structures.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other top stories making headlines in Daily Report this week:
- Rep. John Bel Edwards, the leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate, received a fairly warm reception when addressing the East Baton Rouge Parish Chamber of Commerce—one of the more pro-Republican organizations in the area that was founded by conservative publisher and former legislator Woody Jenkins.
- New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu put to rest any suggestions that he’ll run for governor this year. During an address to the Press Club of Baton Rouge on Monday, Landrieu weighed in on a number of pressing issues in Louisiana, but he decidedly stated he will not run for governor as many have speculated he would.
- An old warehouse on Nicholson Drive near the Mississippi River Bridge soon will be the new home to several tenants with design or artistically related businesses. The 18,000-square-foot building at 1010 Nicholson Drive will be called 1010 Nick and will represent something of a milestone in the redevelopment of the Nicholson corridor between downtown and LSU.
