Washington (Platts)--2Sep2008

Hurricane Gustav inflicted "extensive damage" to Entergy's electricity
transmission and distribution system in Louisiana, the utility said late
Monday night, leaving more than 780,000 customers without power.

Entergy said that the New Orleans and Baton Rouge area "is essentially an
island, no longer electrically connected to the rest of the system," and that
the power-restoration challenge in the wake of Gustav "rivals the scale and
difficulty of Hurricane Katrina restoration" three years ago. The utility's
Waterford 1, Nine Mile Point and Little Gypsy generation plants are now
supplying all power to the New Orleans and Baton Rouge area "because all
transmission lines leading to and from the area are out of service."

"Entergy's transmission system has experienced massive damage, with 134
transmission lines and 78 substations out of service," it said. "Entergy
restoration organizers are assessing how best to tie and synchronize the New
Orleans and Baton Rouge area back into the larger system. This will be a very
delicate operation requiring close coordination between generation,
transmission, distribution and other Entergy functions," the utility added.

Entergy's River Bend nuclear plant near Baton Rouge was at 40% power as
the storm passed through the region, "but load concerns prompted the decision
to take the plant offline" as of 6 pm CDT. Entergy's Waterford 3 nuclear
plant had been taken offline Sunday night.

The number of outages at Entergy caused by Gustav marks the third
highest in Entergy's 95-year history, the utility said. "The only larger
numbers were 1.1 million during Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as
one of the worst natural disasters in American history, and 800,000 during
Hurricane Rita, which occurred back-to-back in August and September of 2005."