More than 120,000 people are without power because of the deadly ice storm. Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell, who represents all of North Louisiana, says Monroe is the hardest hit area of the state as more than 45,000 customers in the parish do not have electricity. Campbell says the buildup of ice on tree limbs has led to many of the outages.
“Pine timber is very, very fragile, as you know. It bends easy. There’s a lot of pine trees broken, a lot of limbs broken where they’re running under pine trees. So we’re in a hell of a mess up here,” Campbell said.
Campbell says there are many cases where one area gets its power restored, but another area loses it.
“The ice is weighing down the limbs and then breaking in the trees. And when you get the electricity back going, then you have another limb fall, and then you have another outage. So we’re in a hell of a mess. What we need is some warm weather,” Campbell said.
Campbell says while no one likes living without power, the public understands Mother Nature has produced a difficult situation for Entergy, SWEPCO, Cleco and all of the power companies working around the clock to get the power restored.
“My phone is not ringing off the hook like it usually does, because people realize we’re in a mess and they’re all trying to work. Neighbors and neighborhoods are working, and people working with the Entergy people and the SWEPCO people and the Cleco people. But we’re all in a hell of a mess up here,” Campbell explained.