Entergy New Orleans power outage caused by pole cut with chainsaw

Oct 31, 2024

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Thousands of Entergy customers in the 7th Ward and parts of the Bywater and St. Roch neighborhoods woke up without power Monday morning.

Entergy reported more than 9,000 customers were without power at the height of the outage. Power was fully restored just before 11 a.m.

According to Beau Tidwell with Entergy New Orleans, a customer cut a service pole with a chainsaw.

Tidwell said the utility is working as quickly and safely as possible to restore power.

The power pole was cut on Alvar Street in the Desire area.

The chainsaw was left on the scene. Entergy crewmembers have the tool in their possession.

Tidwell issued the following statement regarding the incident:

“This morning our crews responded to an outage impacting approximately 8,000 customers in the 7th Ward and Bywater neighborhoods. One of our crews discovered a fallen pole at 3635 Pleasure Street @ Alvar Street. The pole had been cut using a chainsaw, which was still embedded in the pole when discovered. NOPD has responded and the investigation is ongoing. Further questions should be directed to the New Orleans Police Department.

“As of now, power has been restored to approximately 7,400 customers. Entergy crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to restore service to the remainder.”

WDSU has reached out to the NOPD for more information on the incident.

To view the Entergy power outage map, click here.