Power companies from the Greater Washington area are making workers available to assist hurricane ravaged areas of Louisiana.
Dominion Energy has sent 200 crews of contractors from Virginia and South Carolina to assist with power restoration following Ida’s impact. Contract crews from Baltimore Gas and Electric and Pepco also are heading down to help.
“We have released 20 line mechanics and 20 vegetation management personnel from our contractors of choice to support restoration efforts in Louisiana,” Pepco Communications Manager Addie Kauzlarich said.
Noting that the remnants of Hurricane Ida are expected to hit the already saturated D.C. area with high winds and heavy rain, Kauzlarich said more resources might be freed up to send to Louisiana, once local impacts have been accessed.
“At this time, for us, it’s really just monitoring what’s going to come through making sure that we have the resources available to support in our region what impacts we might have here,” Kauzlarich said.
“As always, we will also have crews available and ready to safely and promptly respond to any outages in our service area,” Dominion Energy’s Peggy Fox said in an email.
Damage is so extensive from the hurricane, help might be needed for quite some time.
“Entergy and Cleco down in Louisiana have told customers they should expect to be without power for days, weeks, and possibly some more than a month in some areas depending on impacts from the storm,” Kauzlarich said.
