Families and businesses are picking up the pieces following a tornado outbreak on Easter. President of the Ouachita Parish Police Jury Shane Smiley says the devastation is widespread.
“It looks like we’ve got some pretty catastrophic damages here in Ouachita Parish on both sides of the river, probably in the neighborhood of 250 families displaced with damages to their homes,” said Smiley.
No one in Louisiana was killed by the storm system.
The coronavirus has presented challenges in how people are sheltered following the storm and Smiley says they are taking a new approach to sheltering in an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“What we did last night is we started putting these folks up in hotel rooms and we’ll do that until we can get everything settled and get them in a permanent location,” said Smiley.
Smiley says there are two public housing communities that appear to be destroyed, including one about a mile from the airport.
“Off of 165 South in Monroe, we have another area that I understand was even some more public housing that suffered about 150 units being damaged there,” said Smiley.
— Update on Monroe Regional Airport (Matt Doyle) —
That deadly system did an estimated 25-30 million dollars in damages to the Monroe Regional Airport.
Congressman Ralph Abraham was on scene and says he saw debris littered runways, destroyed buildings, and the remains of small jets poking out from under collapsed hangar roofs.
“It destroyed completely one hangar where there were some expensive airplanes housed, and it certainly destroyed them to the point of non-repair,” says Abraham.
Abraham says they’ve reached out to both state and federal officials to begin the process of getting aid for the airport and other businesses that have been destroyed.
“We called the White House as soon as we heard about it. As soon as we were on the ground I called the Governor and had a conversation with him. He sent prayers and support and was even yesterday sending supplies,” says Abraham.
The airport is closed today and Abraham says it could be some time before it gets back up and running.
“So many things have to get back in place for that airport to reopen, but like all regional airports we need it open quickly because it is a busy airport,” says Abraham.
— Update on power outages 12:34 PM 04-13-2020 (Matt Doyle) —
Thousands in north Louisiana are without power a day after a devastating tornado system ripped through the region.
Entergy Louisiana spokesperson David Freese says at the Sunday afternoon peak 26,500 customers were without power, but they’ve managed to pull that number down over the last 24 hours.
“As of 10 AM this morning we had 16,000 customers across Louisiana without power, and 6,900 of them were actually in Ouachita Parish with a good pocket of them being in Monroe,” says Freese.
Entergy damage assessment reports 200 poles, 450 spans of wire, and 50 transformers will either need to be repaired or replaced. Freese says they’re pulling in emergency workers to get it done.
“There is an Entergy storm team of approximately 1,500 support personnel and contractors who are engaged in this restoration effort across the state,” says Freese.
Freese warns some customers may not have their power back on until later this week due to the extensive amount of damage to infrastructure.
“I want to let customers in the Monroe area know that we are there, we are on the ground, but because of the significant damage in the area this could be a multi-day restoration,” says Freese.
SWEPCO is reporting 8,686 of their Louisiana customers are without power as well. They expect most of their customers to be restored by Wednesday.
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