Baton Rouge is a mess. Where are the journalists?
Hurricane Gustav brushed past New Orleans, but smacked Baton Rouge hard just 80 miles away.
Look at
The Advocate's front page. They have an emergency there. (
See photos)
Close to a million people have been without power. As of Thursday afternoon, the local power company is saying it will be
at least Sept. 17 before it will be up to 90 percent that have electricity.
One medical center in Baton Rouge had to send all its patients away because there is no electricity.
A second hospital had to transfer 29 patients.
In some places, residents are being warned it may be four weeks before power is restored.
Entergy Corp., which is the biggest power system in the area, says the Baton Rouge region has never seen as much damage as it has in this storm. (
See company's Web site with updates.)
In a briefing Thursday, the power company said around 72 percent of the Parish of East Baton Rouge did not have power. Some parishes had 90 percent still without power Thursday.
An Associated Press report said:
The Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities in Louisiana, estimates that half the power will be restored in nine days, but that it will take up to four weeks before all power is back.
Gov. Bobby Jindal has said that's unacceptable.
"One of the things that absolutely has to be worked out is what more could be done to harden the lines and make the distribution system more safe for future storms or intentional acts, whether it's additional redundancies or a hardening of the assets," he said Thursday.
He said getting the power restored is key to getting the state's hard-hit communities back on their feet.
"If we do have full power, it lessens the need to evacuate patients out of hospitals and nursing homes," he said. "If we do have full power, it lessens the need to have to go and buy generators and try to stand up fuel stations, grocery stores and pharmacies. "
The Department of Energy said Thursday morning that 1 million customers are without power, including 925,963 in Louisiana. That is down nearly 200,000 customers from Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Jindal said Thursday that the state is in the process of purchasing 400 generators to allow selected gas stations, grocery stores and pharmacies to open for business. Some gas stations have run out; people waited for hours to get fuel.
Natural gas is a problem, too. Entergy said:
Gas operations reported 150 gas lines damaged in Baton Rouge by uprooting of trees. Fifteen of these lines will be repaired, 135 have extensive damage.
East Baton Rouge is still under a curfew order.
Floods are forcing some out of their homes.
Trees are sitting on houses and roads. See this story from
The Advocate.A local women's hospital needs diapers and formula.
See Thursday's parish-by-parish update from WBRZ-TV.
Entergy says:
- In terms of power outages, Hurricane Gustav is the second worst in Entergy’s 95-year history, peaking at about 850,000 early Tuesday –- the overwhelming majority of them in Louisiana. That easily bypassed the 800,000 outages in Hurricane Rita in 2005. The only larger number of Entergy outages was 1.1 million in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as one of the worst natural disasters in American history.
- The largest numbers of Gustav outages in Louisiana are being reported in Jefferson, Orleans, East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge, Tangipahoa, Lafourche, Terrebonne, Ascension, Plaquemines, Livingston, St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. Bernard, Assumption and St. Landry parishes in Louisiana and Adams County in Mississippi.
- Restoration workers are responding from Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Yes, Houma/Terrebonne were hammered. North Louisiana was deluged and hundreds...
