CC Image courtesy Ted Huffman @Flickr
He Said:
If you’re looking for sunshine and roses today, go somewhere else. I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs discussing the prevailing NOLA meme of the past few days, and it won’t be pretty.
So Entergy sucks you say? Really?
From 7:23pm August 31, here’s the 140 characters that perfectly capture not only what went wrong with Entergy, but also what went wrong with their customers:
@WhoDat @nolafoodgoddess @nolanolegal It's not the power per se. We know how it works. It's alerts saying we have power & social media fail.—
Duris Holmes (@duris) August 31, 2012
@Duris hit the nail on the head with his statements about communication and social media fail, but his statement that ‘we know how it (the power) works’ was even more prescient, although not in the way he intended.
First, Entergy can’t blame anyone else for throwing themselves into the social media wood chipper. Living without power, even for a few days, just sucks. Always has and always will. But what has fundamentally changed is our expectation of accurate continuous communication. @Duris and all the rest of us are right to expect it. The tools and technology are there, and Entergy failed to make use of them.
The outage map was inaccurate, their CEO proved to be a less than inspiring speaker, and Entergy failed to effectively communicate the scope of the problem. What could they have done differently? Better information and education, before, during, and after the storm. The primary goal, of course, was getting the juice back on. But Entergy appears not to have fully appreciated the secondary goal of articulating the process and framing the dialogue.
When they willfully ceded the information high-ground, others were more than happy to jump into the gap. The result, one would hope, is a fundamental learning within the utility hierarchy: If you suck at communication, the general public will rapidly assume you suck at everything else, including your actual core competence.
We need and deserve better from Entergy in this area; hopefully during the next storm (and we know there will be one) we’ll get it.
Now let’s turn to where @Duris got it so wrong.
‘It’s not the power per se. We know how it works.’
With all due respect, @Duris: No. No you don’t.
And with very small exceptions, neither does the public at large (myself included). Plugging in a lamp and watching the bulb light up doesn’t mean you know how it works. And don’t get on your high-horse, you handyman electricians. Knowing how to throw a breaker, or even how to rewire your entire house, still doesn’t mean you know how it works.
Repeat after me: Unless you possess a very specific skill set, You. Do. Not. Know. How. To. Restore. A. Municipal. Power. Grid.
And why would you be expected to? There’s no shame in that. But there’s plenty of shame in the hubris of people ready to assume that they do know. According to his profile, @Duris is an attorney. Well, I know what a Miranda right is. Would you be ok with me representing you against him in a court of law because ‘I know how it (the law) works?’ Yeah, I didn’t think so.
How is it that so many people with a wealth of expertise in their chosen profession, expertise built over years of education, training, and experience, can so cavalierly assume that similar expertise would not obtain in a project of this scope?
Yeah the communication could have and should have been much better, and yes the wait for power has been frustrating. But none of that justifies intellectual laziness and the mean-spirited idea that if I can’t have what I want right now it must be somebody’s fault.
Welcome to America’s favorite reality show: Who can I blame?
My apologies to anyone who’d not been through a storm before, but if you thought you wouldn’t be without power for several or many days you were misled or willfully ignorant.
Here are a couple of examples of the high level thinking that concluded Entergy wasn’t doing their job restoring power:
From 8:08am on Sept 1:
@caderoux thanks, how about you just brew some coffee and bring it to the hundreds of @Entergy contractors sitting idle in #Nola east.—
(@nolawineguy) September 01, 2012
@NOLAwineguy seems unaware of Federal DOT regulations requiring driver rest periods. He might be able to suggest a terrific Bordeaux, but that doesn’t give us any reason to assume he knows jack shit about the power grid. Thankfully, he doesn’t waste time worrying about any of that ‘knowledge’ stuff, as his investigative reporting reveals to us that Entergy’s not hard at work.
From 8:04am on Sept 1:
I wouldn't be nearly as furious with @Entergy were it not for the arbitrary patchwork of random work they're doing in my neighborhood.—
(@nolawineguy) September 01, 2012
Arbitrary? This tweet is an arbitrary unsupported load of horseshit. What’s more likely, that Entergy decided to work without a plan, or that a wine expert just doesn’t understand it?
But wait, there’s more. The always quotable @nolawineguy exercised his critical thinking with this gem at 11:20am September 2:
Hey, remember that time New York City was mostly without power for nearly a week? Yeah, me neither. #Nola #entergyfail—
(@nolawineguy) September 02, 2012
Brilliant comparison. Hey @nolawineguy, would you consider Houston a major city? Perhaps a better point of comparison given their geography? Ya know how long they were without power after Hurricane Ike? I do. You obviously can’t be troubled to look for any, like, facts, so let me help you. Just click on this thing right here, action reporter.
Am I being to0 hard on @nolawineguy? Before you decide, just check this last one out at 8:05pm on August 30, and remember winds did not drop below 30 mph until Wednesday afternoon, August 29, or a shade more than 24 hours before @nolawineguy decided it was time to fight the power:
The check is in the mail, Entergy is working on restoring power and I won't come in your mouth. #threegreatlies #Nola #issac—
(@nolawineguy) August 31, 2012
Cry me a river, buddy. Whatever credibility you might have had vanished the moment you started bitching about not getting same-day service on your lights and AC. And don’t give me that crap about already having been without power for days by this time. If you count the hours during which Isaac was parked over us against Entergy’s response time, do me a favor and get your ass up on a pole in 50 mph winds sometime and let me know how it works out for you.
Here’s another from 8:16pm on Aug 31:
.@Entergy is the new #fail. No damn reason for the power to still be out.—
Chuck Laskey (@ChuckL50) September 01, 2012
Well I guess this is more reasonable. A bit more than 48 hours after the restoration commenced there’s ‘no good reason’ for it not to be completed? And your basis for that conclusion is what, exactly? Did you think they had a Staples’ Big Red Easy button they just needed to press?
And let’s not forget the grandstanding Jefferson Parish President John Young, who managed to find the opportunity to build some political capital jumping on Entergy (forcing them to divert resources to a response, by the way). Hey John, why is it that there’s still storm debris all over the street on September 5th? Why are you having a problem coordinating that? Why the hell wasn’t this crap off the ground by 9am August 30, and are you preparing your resignation as a result? And while you’re at it, can you explain to me why you were blaming Entergy for the lack of power to your lift stations during and after the storm? Was it news to you that we might, like, lose power during a hurricane? Did it not occur to you to maybe generator-backup those puppies? Glass houses, John. Glass houses.
Look, I get it. Loss of power is damned inconvenient, and seriously expensive. The economic consequences of the storm are large. For some small businesses, they’re critical. But there’s no way around the fact that, for most of us, Isaac was a walk in the park compared to what happened seven years before. Maybe there’s evidence that Entergy failed in the restoration, but I haven’t seen it yet. If you’ve got some, feel free to chime in. But ‘I’m tired of being without power’ is not evidence. ‘I saw trucks parked and not rolling’ is not evidence. ‘My brother’s cousin’s sister talked to a lineman from out of state’ is not evidence. ‘Things seem disorganized’ is not evidence.
The next time one of these things happens, maybe some of us can be smart enough to know what we don’t know.
That may be the most topical and cogent rant I’ve read on ANY municipal situation in my life. Bravo and brava HeSaid/SheSaid!
I’ve now identified a new oxymoron: a sane rant. Just know that many of the players you just smacked down are emotionally invested in their ignorant positions … and keep your head down, brother.
I have absolutely NO complaints about Entergy. Despite being far closer to the storm’s center than NOLA, my power was out for 28 hours…not even long enough for the milk to sour. Some Louisianians lost their LIVES during Isaac. This storm was not an insignificant force–some folks erroneously assume if their house is okay, then everything else must be okay, too. Kudos to the line workers who do the hard work of power restoration.
Celeste, I do think those who are unfamiliar are done a bit of a disservice by the Saffir-Simpson scale. A mere 1 to 5 wind speed ranking ignores important elements that contribute to storm damage. Isaac’s barometric pressure was very low for a Cat 1, and we were in the NE quadrant, which did not happen in Katrina. And the speed of the storm didn’t do us any favors.
Great post. After the recent derecho that blew thru the DC area, some folks were without power for a week or more, and oh the bitching that did commence. Not that it wasn’t a hassle, or that Pepco is a model of optimal efficiency, but there were similarly unreasonable expectations given the circumstances. The challlenge was that the clean up of one downed tree and repair of one piece of equipment didn’t magically restore power to 20,000 people, but often only to a few houses on one block. So the same work that in some cases may have a significant restorative effect, in this case, was a lot of work with minimal impact. Multiply that times thousands of downed trees and mini-points of failure, and the work was daunting given the manpower and time needed. And it was an equal opportunity storm. Those in affluent neighborhoods were neither protected from power loss nor exempted from extended outages. The bitching hit its hyperpolic high point when one rich dude in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the area posted a sign reading, “we are the 9th ward”. Please. Having your wine fridge go without power for a week isn’t on par with total devastation buddy. Get a grip. Don’t go to battle with that guy. He probably couldn’t live through a camping trip.
Yeah, the entitlement mentality over the past week had for me more than a little Veruca Salt to it
Hey Yous Said, it turns out, according to Big Schleif at the Sometimes Picayune, that all parish leaders and mayors in the areas which flooded outside the Exquisite Corps Coffin around New Orleans were issued copious, timely and specific Storm Surge Models before Isaac made landfall. Not based on Saffir-Simpson, these warnings were consistently updated to reflect as real-time as possible. Except for Billy the Mountain in Plaquimines, not one single parish leader issued a mandatory evacuation for Lafite, LaPlace or Slidell.
Now yous tell me whose ‘soomin whose?
On Entergy let me say this: so far I’ve bought rounds of beers for about a dozen Line Workers I spotted at times which will remain classified in bars which shall remain nameless. Poor things were trying to catch a break, keeping their heads down. No shit, they left their families and worked Labor Day to restore my power and they’re keeping their heads down in my motherfucking city? I. Don’t. T’ink. So! No fickn’way.
New Orleans is in a far far better place than that.
I wish the city could throw these men and women of The Line a nice fat New Orleans PARTAY. Feed’em, get’em drunk, get’em laid, slap’em on the back and say THANKS BRAHS!
Thanks for this post and the fun times honkin’it up at Kermits! Yous guys are smooth to the fine.
Point of clarification….St Charles Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation on Monday. The west bank of St Charles has no hurricane protection levee, and parish leaders communicated clearly and directly with its citizens about anticipated surge. Due to the storms angle of approach, the surge did not materialize, unlike neighboring St John parish.
Thanks. My sister’s family evacuated from Luling to her daughter’s home in BR. For a spell there Isaac looked to me like it was going to harrow right over their gym.
Dem buds who run St Charles parish don’t play around. They’ve always been on the stick.
Thanks for the beer for the line workers….one of which was probably my husband. He was there working to restore power. 11 days straight – 16 hours a day – it’s not easy!!!!!!
He was also there for Katrina and Rita and Ike and countless other hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. Too many storms for me to remember the names. They were kicked out of their hotel room in New Orleans because The Saints had a home game – now where are your priorities? During Katrina he slept on the sidewalk a couple of nights because there was no place to stay.
Thanls for the insight on human frailty. It’s best to endure work hard and what you can get better in yourself and move on. Engergy does the best it can. Why ask for more. I do agree improved commuication may alleviate stress and worry on those poor instant everything satisfaction nuts including some of our more proinent politicians, but lets face it. Improve yourself and assist in improving others. what else is there? Congrats on a fine paper. Ron Gagne
Ageed, Dear *He* (’cause I don’t think *she*gets on this kind of diatribe, but then again, may be …. ) for the most if not all the pointst … a few additional points though: the “training” of the guys from ou sayin’t of town could have been done before they left, coordination with tree cutters could have been better, but (and mainly) if Entergy would put more $ in maintenance instead of record profits, maybe, just maybe, the grid would not have crumbled that fast, that extensively …. and by the way, “we’re on it” definitevely does not frame the dialogue
; finally, for those of us here during the peri-Katrina era, we cringe when we realize that Entergy’s current CEO used to be C Ray (Nagin) CFO … I’m just sayin’ .
Great post though not about food
Cheers
Bruno
Great post. People just get cranky when they have to sit around in the dark and the heat. I think we as a metro area were not actually prepared for a storm that just squatted and dumped as much wind and rain as we got. I know I wasn’t. I was prepared for basically a tropical storm. I got lucky in this one… I lost power for only 2 hours on Wed. and one hour on Sun. The Sunday outage is a bit confusing, but I was told when someone was trying to get rid of a felled tree, it tipped wrongly and blew a transformer right in my block. So Entergy had it fixed in a hour!!! I’ve got no complaints and thanks to the brave men a women working many overtime hours to get us back on the grid.
I can not thank you enough for posting this. I am sending link to quite a few people. Admittedly, I read the subject line and thought it might be another “bitch” session as I have been hearing and reading lately, but I was so wrong and I loved every word of it!
Hey Bruno…you missed the point….don’t check your brain at the door. You don’t know their maintenance record, just cause Tommy Tucker spewed his ignorance. And they ain’t got record profits these days. Check your facts … but what does that mean anyway? They made more profits in real numbers than they did 10 years ago? Well a hamburger costs more too. Just remember they are like any business, if you want a gold standard, you will pay for it (just like a grocery store, you want Whole Foods quality, you pay Whole Foods prices). Everything they do, and spend money on is reviewed and approved by the regulator – your City Council.
Otherwise great post. So tired of everyone know everything, when clearly they don’t. Just cause you read a newspaper or you read a book doesn’t mean you are an expert.
Kudos for Entergy getting their stuff up and running in 6-7 days.
Bruno and Rorschach: Can’t speak to Entergy’s maintenance record or record profits (or lack thereof). Happy to post comments if anyone has any specific detail suggesting Entergy did (or did not) appropriately maintain lines or if $$ were or were not appropriately reinvested.
If you’re referring to Entergy’s use of social media with this comment: “The tools and technology are there, and Entergy failed to make use of them.” I call BS. You obviously didn’t follow us on Twitter or Facebook or download our app. We used social media unlike any other utility company used it before during a crisis situation. Take a quick look at how active and how much information we put on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr since last Monday, and your argument that we “failed to make use of” social media carries no weight. Maybe it wasn’t the information you wanted to hear, but it was the most up-to-date information we had at the time. I should know. I manage social media for Entergy.
Three things …
First: Ris, Charles Rice is not the CEO of Entergy, but for Entergy New Orleans. Most of the whining and bitching … er … inquiry and dialogue has been about Jefferson Parish (where the little punk-ass, stupid twit of a politician John Young shot off his mouth). Not that any of that matters because of the second thing:
DOE Official Assesses Hurricane Isaac Damage … Calls Pace of Restoration Progress “Unbelievable” … “The typical benchmark for utility companies is to restore power to 70 percent of customers within five to seven days. The pace of Entergy’s restoration, restoring power to 90 percent of its customers in four to five days, is unbelievable,” said William Bryan, deputy assistant secretary for infrastructure security and energy restoration. (http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/09/05/4239198/doe-official-assesses-hurricane.html).
Finally, Entergy’s ALLOWABLE profit margin is negotiated through rate filings with its various regulators. In general, the company is ALLOWED to earn a profit rate of 12 percent. But if you check, it never earns that much. The company has only earned anywhere near that rate once in decades; after Katrina due mainly to tax breaks resulting from relief legislation aimed at helping ALL the companies devastated by the storm. By the way, investor-owned utilities consistently out perform those run by municipalities, investing more in maintaining their infrastructure.
So that’s it; the restoration has not only not been poorly conducted; it has been conducted with epic skill. And there are not record profits. Now serving the next ignorant jackass in line .
FYI, here are the comments by the DOE you reference:
New Orleans, La. – A U.S. Department of Energy official from the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability praised Entergy Corporation for its response to Hurricane Isaac after completing a preliminary inspection of the damage and restoration work in Louisiana.
“The typical benchmark for utility companies is to restore power to 70 percent of customers within five to seven days. The pace of Entergy’s restoration, restoring power to 90 percent of its customers in four to five days, is unbelievable,” said William Bryan, deputy assistant secretary for infrastructure security and energy restoration.
“This is one of the best restorations we’ve seen in recent memory and Entergy should be commended,” Bryan added.
The entire Gulf Coast region has made tremendous progress rebuilding since Hurricane Isaac made landfall Aug. 28, he said. A preliminary assessment shows the nation’s critical oil and gas infrastructure sustained minimal damage while the electrical infrastructure supporting the region is now more than 98 percent restored.
“Although there is still more to do, those involved in restoration efforts should be proud for what was achieved. Your customers were well served,” Bryan said.