Louisiana utility companies ready for Isaac

Utility crews were surveying power lines Monday and thousands of utility workers from other states remain on standby today as Louisiana power companies readied for Tropical Storm Isaac. Fresh in minds around the state’s capital city was Hurricane Gustav, which struck as a Category 2 storm in 2008 and surprised Baton Rouge residents with power outages that lasted 10 days or more in wide swaths of the city. Public Service Commissioner Jimmy Field, who represents the Baton Rouge area on the state’s utility regulatory panel, says he’s confident power companies are in good shape to meet Isaac. “Everybody’s ready. We’ve done this before. You’re always going to have some problems, but I don’t think any state has utilities that are better prepared,” Field says. Sheila Pounders, with Entergy Gulf States Louisiana, says the utility company has spent millions since Gustav on cutting trees and clearing vegetation from the lines and launching new technology to identify trouble areas in the power grid. She says Entergy crews spot-checked utility lines ahead of the storm, adding that the company has invested in infrared technology since Gustav that can identify potential faults in the electrical wires and transmission equipment, similar to an X-ray camera. Nonetheless, utility officials and customers alike are still preparing for outages. The chief questions that remain are how widespread they will be and how long they will take to repair. More than 4,300 crews were on standby at companies in other states as of Monday. Read the full story here.