In Brief

Energy's Response to Katrina

Storm tests the New Orleans utility's emergency plans

November 01, 2005 — CSO — Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleansâ¬based Entergy noted that it had restored power to 80 percent of its 1.1 million affected customers. Entergy, which serves 2.7 million electricity customers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Arkansas, tests its disaster recovery plan every year, says Ray Johnson, CIO of the $10 billion utility. But Katrina delivered a worst case—a major hurricane followed by flooding in New Orleans. Entergy expects the recovery to cost up to $1.1 billion; its Entergy New Orleans unit filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 23. (On Sept. 24, Hurricane Rita caused outages in Texas and Louisiana for 765,000 customers.) Here, Johnson recounts his efforts to recover from Katrina:

Friday, Aug. 26: This evening, as the hurricane headed toward New Orleans, Entergy decided to activate its disaster recovery plan. It calls for some preliminary actions to be taken beginning 72 hours before a Category 3 hurricane is scheduled to make landfall.

Saturday, Aug. 27: At 5 a.m., Johnson sent his first IT "away" team to Entergy's disaster recovery site in Little Rock, Ark. Entergy's primary data center is in Gretna, La., across the river from its headquarters. Although the backup generators for that data center had never failed, Johnson worried that they could go down, as the storm was targeting New Orleans. The company implemented its disaster recovery plan.

Sunday, Aug. 28: As the morning began, Johnson declared an emergency with Entergy's vendor SunGard so SunGard could reserve capacity at Entergy's disaster recovery facility should it not be able to replicate systems in Little Rock.

Johnson made it to Entergy's storm command center in Jackson, Miss., around 4 a.m. Katrina had strengthened from Category 3 to Category 5. Johnson's team prepared the systems that would be most critical in restoring electricityâ¬its outage recording and management applicationsâ¬to run off the Little Rock data center in case something happened in Gretna.

Monday, Aug. 29: By 3 a.m., Gretna had lost commercial power and its backup generator was sustaining serious damage from wind and debris. The Gretna center suffered roof and water damage as well.

Tuesday, Aug. 30: Electricity was out everywhereâ¬even in the Jackson command center. That evening Johnson sent an expeditionary force, which included some Entergy IT staff and some staff from its outsourcing vendor SAIC, to the Gretna data center.

Wednesday, Aug. 31: Although Entergy's most critical applications were brought online in Little Rock from backup tapes sent over the weekend, the team determined they could get the Gretna generator back online and bring in a generator from another facility as backup.