OG&E crews head to Louisiana to help with power restoration

Research students from the the University of Alabama measure wind speeds as Hurricane Isaac makes landfall, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012, in New Orleans, La. Isaac was packing 80 mph winds, making it a Category 1 hurricane. It came ashore early Tuesday near the mouth of the Mississippi River, driving a wall of water nearly 11 feet high inland and soaking a neck of land that stretches into the Gulf. The storm stalled for several hours before resuming a slow trek inland, and forecasters said that was in keeping with the its erratic history. The slow motion over land means Isaac could be a major soaker, dumping up to 20 inches of rain in some areas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Crews from Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. are traveling to Louisiana today to help with power restoration in the wake of Hurricane Isaac.

Latest estimates from the storm put more than 500,000 people without power.

OG&E Electric Services said 71 employees will help Cleco Power. They will stage at Cleco’s headquarters in Pineville, La., and be dispatched to surrounding areas in need of help.

OG&E is a member of the Southeast Electric Exchange, which organizes mutual assistance teams from utilities across the south after storms.

“Our crews are always ready and willing to help others in a time of need during outages like this,” said Mike Mathews, OG&E’s vice president of power delivery operations, in a statement. “They’re working safely to get power back to the citizens of Louisiana, or wherever they’re needed, and they’ll continue until the job is done.”

In March, OG&E won the “Emergency Assistance Award” from the Edison Electric Institute for its efforts to restore service following several regional weather emergencies in 2011. The award recognizes utilities that help neighboring or regional utilities that have been disrupted by severe weather outages. Among the service restoration events OG&E helped with were severe thunderstorms, flooding and tornado damage in Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Alabama.