Thousands of people are without power in New Orleans as Francine drenches southern states

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Residents of the Carrollton neighborhood in New Orleans are among thousands who remained without power Friday after Hurricane Francine passed through. Their frustration mounted as the city’s electrical provider, Entergy, sent out notifications informing some people their power had been “restored” even though they still had no electricity.

“Every single storm, every one, no matter how big or how small, the same thing happens,” said Rudy Cerone, 71, referring to the power outages. “Entergy just doesn’t seem to take the necessary preparatory actions to harden this system to provide the power that we’re paying through the nose for.”

An Entergy New Orleans spokesperson said the city had restored power to more than 40,000 customers since Thursday and that many more would regain electricity by the end of the day Friday. Around 6,500 Entergy customers in the city lacked power as of Friday afternoon, part of about 95,000 customers in Louisiana still without electricity, according to the tracking site poweroutage.us.

The spokesperson also said the information used to update outage numbers comes from crews in the field.

“These steps take time, and our teams are committed to providing customers with the latest restoration information as it is available,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said electricity is the major issue facing the state since Francine rolled through.

“The biggest challenge we have had in this storm is utilities – trying to get the power back on,” Landry said at a news conference Friday afternoon.

Prior to Francine making landfall, utility crews were pre-positioned in areas that would likely be impacted by power outages, Landry said.

“The speed under which they’re putting those utilities online comes from the fact that prior storms have given us an opportunity to build grid resilience,” he said.

Another Carrollton resident, Alexandra Canary, 73, said she left to stay with her son in another part of the city where power had returned and she could sleep with the comfort of air conditioning. But she was annoyed at the inconveniences of the power outage, like having to throw away all the perishable food items in her refrigerator, and the stuffy heat of her own home.

“It’s not pleasant, I’ll survive it, but it just seems unbelievable that their system is not working,” she said.

Davante Lewis, an elected member of the state Public Service Commission that regulates utilities, did a ride along on Thursday with Entergy to assess the damage. He said much of it was broken branches and trees — likely weakened by recent drought conditions in the state — on power lines.

“I think what we are seeing right now is a lot of vegetation issues and we just don’t have enough hands to move it (debris) that fast or enough hours in the day to safely do so in sunlight,” Lewis said.

Utility crews from Oklahoma, Florida, Texas and elsewhere are working to restore power, Lewis said, with projections for full restoration by Sunday.

“Any amount of time without power in Louisiana, especially for vulnerable communities, is too long,” Lewis said. “But we have seen restoration times a lot shorter than some of the earlier predictions and we are faring better.”

The storm, which drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, came ashore Wednesday in Louisiana with 100 mph (160 kph) winds and drenched a large swath of the South, including parts of Arkansas and Florida. Forecasters expected Francine to weaken Friday as it crossed northern Arkansas, but the storm's slow progress will mean days of heavy rain in the Southeast, creating a flash flooding risk.

Another 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters), with about 8 inches (20 centimeters) in some locations, were expected in parts of central and northern Alabama through Sunday. In northeastern Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, another 2 to 4 inches (5 to 10 centimeters) was expected.

No deaths or serious injuries have been reported in Francine's aftermath.

Rushing water nearly enveloped a pickup truck in a New Orleans underpass, trapping the driver inside. A 39-year-old emergency room nurse who lived nearby waded into the waist-high water with a hammer, smashed the window and pulled out the driver. The rescue was captured live by WDSU-TV.

“It’s just second nature I guess, being a nurse, you just go in and get it done, right?” Miles Crawford told The Associated Press on Thursday. “I just had to get to get him out of there.”

In the coastal community of Cocodrie in southern Louisiana, where many families own seasonal homes along the bayou for fishing, police guarded a road to prevent looting as people cleaned their properties.

Brooks Pellegrin, 50, and his family cleared muck out of their campsite, a two-story structure with a large dock on a canal about 14 miles (22 kilometers) from the Gulf of Mexico. They worked well into Thursday afternoon raking marsh grass and spraying down muddy floors after a 10-foot (3-meter) storm surge washed away the building’s back wall, porch and much of the boat deck.

“We built everything up so we wouldn’t have to do this. This one brought in a lot more water than Ida,” Pellegrin said. “It packed a lot more punch than I was expecting.”

For many in the area bordered by bayous, swamps, lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, threats of flooding and hurricanes have become a way of life, Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said.

Water comprises about a quarter of the area in the parish, which is home to about 97,000 people south of New Orleans. In 2021, Ida made landfall in the southern point of the parish as a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph).

That storm was “cataclysmic” and “the most significant hurricane” to impact the area. Following the 2021 storm, 90% of homes in the area needed a roof replacement and many houses were damaged beyond repair, Webre said.

Over the years, the area has become more resilient against storms, improving drainage and pumping stations and replacing roofs that can better withstand hurricane-force winds. Residents re also evacuating more quickly when there are significant storm threats, Webre said.

“This population is very resilient. They’re very independent. They’re very pioneering,” he said.

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Cline reported from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans and Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this story.