NEW ORLEANS – After Hurricane Ida knocked out power to thousands of utility customers across South Louisiana, Entergy New Orleans and Entergy Louisiana employees worked around the clock over a period of ten days to restore power to 90% of customers in the greater New Orleans and Greater Baton Rouge areas. These areas include Ascension, Iberville, East and West Bank of Jefferson and Orleans parishes.

As of Thursday, Orleans Parish is 98% restored, with approximately 4000 customers without power. The Baton Rouge area was substantially restored on Sept. 6. Currently, 682,000 of the 902,000 customers who lost power due to Hurricane Ida are back on.

While the power company celebrates this mark, it remains focused on the extensive work that lies ahead.

In some of the hardest-hit areas, Entergy workers face extensive damage that will require rebuilding the system, as opposed to just a restoration.

The company says restoration efforts continue in the Venetian Isle, Irish Bayou and Lake Catherine areas; in those areas, customers who can accept power are expected to receive it by Sunday, September 12.

When Ida swept through Louisiana from August 29-30, the storm damaged 30,679 poles, 36,469 spans of wire and 5,959 transformers. Entergy says this single storm damaged and/or destroyed more poles than hurricanes Katrina, Ike, Delta and Zeta did combined.

"We’ve made great strides in restoring power, but we still have work to do. We won’t stop until every customer has their power back on,” said John Hawkins, Entergy’s vice president of distribution operations in Louisiana. “I thank our customers for their patience and understanding as we work to restore power to our communities.”

According to Entergy's outage map, just over 215,000 Louisiana customers are awaiting power on Thursday afternoon.