Lessons learned from Hurricanes Gustav, Ike lead to new communications efforts

Beaumont, Texas – September 13 marks one year since Hurricane Ike left 99 percent of Entergy Texas, Inc. customers in the dark.

The storm struck the Upper Texas Coast less than two weeks after Hurricane Gustav cut a swath through Louisiana. The two back-to-back storms brought together thousands of Entergy employees, contractors and workers from other utilities who traveled to devastated areas to restore light and life to affected communities.

Now, a year after Ike’s fateful landfall, Entergy Texas is more prepared than ever to help customers get the information they need when widespread outages occur.

“People understand that major storms can and will knock out their power,” said Vernon Pierce, director of customer service for Entergy Texas, Inc. “But after a couple of days they get frustrated if they don’t know how the restoration effort is going or when their lights will come back on.”

To better communicate this information, Entergy made a state-of-the-art upgrade to the “View Outages” portion of its Web site this year. Now, customers can view outages by specific address or street, learn the cause and get estimates on when power will be restored.

“Technology has reached the point that customers don’t need electricity to view Web sites,” Pierce noted. “Customers can get there with a satellite card or through an internet-capable cell phone.

“Those who have left their homes or businesses for areas with power can check a computer to see when it’s time to return.”

Entergy Texas is also testing a system to text message information to customers about power outages and restoration. The system is scheduled for delivery this fall.

In addition, the company has unveiled a new Storm Center Web Site at entergystormcenter.com. Elements of the Storm Center include:

• News Updates—Visitors can subscribe to receive Really Simple Syndication (RSS) messages when an update has been added to the site.
• Important Information—General information about Entergy’s restoration process, plus historical information related to a current restoration as it continues over time. For example, it could include landfall time and location of a hurricane and the peak number of customer outages caused by the storm.
• View Outages Information—A link to Entergy’s online Web outage system can also be found on this Web page, which provides information about outages and estimated restoration times.
• Photos and Videos—Photos and videos are delivered through a modernized media management system.
• Other Links—A collection of links to other Web sites, such as American Red Cross, The Weather Channel, FEMA, news media, etc.

“After every storm we take a hard look at lessons learned and these improved communications efforts are a result of that,” said Pierce. “This new Storm Center Site is now a major part of our communications response during major restoration and will deliver localized updates throughout the day as restoration progresses.”

Entergy Texas, Inc. provides electricity to almost 400,000 customers in 27 counties. It is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation. Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, and it is the second-largest nuclear generator in the United States. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

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Entergy Texas’ online address is entergy-texas.com