Mississippi Public Service Commissioners want answers from Entergy

The three-man Public Service Fee authorized an investigation into Entergy Mississippi’s preparedness and response associated to the June extreme climate occasions that left 1000’s with out energy for a number of days.

Final month, Mississippi residents throughout a lot of the central a part of the state had been hit with repeated extreme climate over the course of two weeks. The outcome was a protracted lack of energy for a lot of Entergy Mississippi clients, the likes of which had not been seen since 2005 when Hurricane Katrina got here ashore within the Magnolia State.

The delay in energy restoration struck a nerve with Central District Public Service Commissioner Brent Bailey. 

“I’m extraordinarily pissed off and dissatisfied by Entergy Mississippi’s response to the current storms,” Commissioner Bailey mentioned on the time. “The delay in restoring energy has triggered important hardship for his or her clients and it’s unacceptable.”

In an announcement, Bailey went on to query the corporate’s lack of preparation, vegetation administration and a lower in discipline employees. He known as on Entergy to offer extra detailed stories concerning their response to the storms. 

“Our job as Commissioners is to carry our utilities and energy suppliers accountable for offering reasonably priced and dependable service,” added Bailey in June.

In an interview with Magnolia Tribune days later, Entergy Mississippi’s CEO Haley Fisackerly mentioned the corporate had over 2,300 staff on website throughout their service space from six completely different states. The storms affected 34 of the 45 counties Entergy serves. The corporate recognized the magnitude of the harm, noting over 580 damaged energy poles, 2,243 spans of wire (or roughly 117 miles), and 182 destroyed transformers.

In the present day, the Mississippi Public Service Fee took up an order regarding the 2023 climate occasions. Commissioner Bailey addressed the order, saying his workplace within the Central District obtained “numerous, a whole lot of calls from clients voicing their frustration, their confusion and general, simply common dissatisfaction with the communication course of” within the restoration procedures.

“There are questions that proceed to linger in our workplace, myself, making an attempt to grasp precisely what are the problems that had been on the market that led to the big variety of outages, the timeframe of which a number of the outages occurred, and the general lack of communication to clients, in some instances days at a time,” Bailey mentioned, including that his criticism was not directed on the “boots on the bottom” linemen.

Commissioner Bailey mentioned he labored with Fee employees to draft the order to provoke a evaluate or investigation into what occurred from when the state first noticed the storms impression the state. He needs to get solutions as to whether the utility firm was ready understanding what was heading their manner.

“Did Entergy, on this case, is who this evaluate is directed at, take sufficient correct actions to anticipate such an occasion, a number of occasions in bringing the crews in and different people as needed in preparation of what turned out to be an extended haul for everyone?” Bailey requested.

The evaluate of Entergy’s response will embody:

Detailed accounting and reason for outages

Efforts by the corporate to speak with clients

An evidence of the outage map

How superior metering infrastructure performs into efficiency and communication to clients

What investments in distribution and vegetation administration have to be thought of.

Commissioner Bailey needs Entergy to reply how they will higher put together when dealing with extreme climate occasions, cyber-attacks, and different points, and the way can the corporate talk in a extra trusted method.

The order handed the Fee unanimously, with Southern District Commissioner Dane Maxwell and Northern District Commissioner Brandon Presley supporting the evaluate.

In an announcement despatched to Magnolia Tribune from Entergy Mississippi, the corporate says they stay up for offering the Fee with a deeper understanding of the challenges confronted final month.

We respect the Fee’s acknowledgment of the unprecedented nature of the June storms, and we wholeheartedly agree with the Fee’s reward of Entergy Mississippi line staff and contractors who’ve labored tirelessly for days on finish to revive energy to clients. We stay up for the chance to offer the Fee with a deeper understanding of the challenges that final month’s treacherous climate introduced into our service space, and the methods we rapidly applied to keep away from additional delay to our clients. We have now an intensive storm analysis course of, and we’re working to appropriate points skilled by the techniques that determine the place outages exist and supply clients with details about their outage and estimated restoration timeline. As we at all times do, we are going to hold the Fee apprised by this course of.

You’ll be able to watch the complete Public Service Fee assembly from as we speak under.