NEW ORLEANS – From Cox Communications:
Additional resources from Cox’s central and northern Virginia regions will arrive this week to assist in restoration efforts of communities hit hard by Hurricane Ida, including St. Charles Parish and portions of Jefferson Parish.
“While we have reconnected more than 80% of our Greater New Orleans customers within two weeks of landfall of this catastrophic storm, we know that there are customers who are still without our services,” said Anthony Pope, senior vice president and region manager of the Cox Southeast Region. “We are seeing unprecedented wind damage from Ida. We are actively working in neighborhoods and will not rest until services are restored to all of our customers.
As of Monday afternoon, we estimate the following in terms of estimated restoration time.
In Metairie, we expect to complete most major neighborhood repairs by Wednesday, Sept. 15, and in Kenner, we expect to complete most major repairs by end of the day Sunday. After the neighborhood repairs are complete, we will be ready to address any additional individual customer issues.
We’ll continue working to repair areas with extensive damage including our St. Charles Parish service area; Avondale and Waggaman on the Westbank of Jefferson Parish and Harahan, River Ridge on the East Bank, as well as Jean Lafitte in lower Jefferson Parish.
As many as 110 miles of the Cox network were damaged during Ida, including six miles of our fiber optics in Destrehan and three miles in Luling where hundreds of power poles were damaged or destroyed. While Cox does not own those poles, our equipment is attached to them. Therefore, repair to damaged poles, and in some cases the building of new poles, must take place before repairs can be made to Cox equipment attached to the poles.
“As we begin to restore New Orleans area neighborhoods, we are finding extensive work needs to be done to repair power poles, our lines on power poles and our equipment on the ground,” Pope said. “We are also finding that many lines to our customers’ homes need to be reconnected.”
As restoration efforts continue, Cox field and network technicians, fiber optic repair workers, and construction teams are spread across our four-parish service area making necessary repairs to the Cox network and equipment damaged by Ida. For example, there are various points in the Cox network, near and far from individual homes, that must be restored for service to come online in individual homes.
Repairs are usually made at or within an individual home once major repairs to equipment servicing a region, parish and neighborhood are complete.
A reminder to customers who report that power is back on in their home but Cox services are not:
Although power is restored in your area, the node (power source) that provides Cox services to your neighborhood may have been damaged or it may follow a different path than the electrical power services. Power or the cable lines could also be out between the “node” and your home. Our technicians are checking diligently, line by line, to ensure all services are restored properly. If your neighbors have service and you do not, you can reboot your device by unplugging the equipment, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in.
If a customer receives a message that their services have been restored, but they are still experiencing an outage, they can chat with us at Cox.com/chat.
Residents can get more information about frequently asked questions, receive updates and chat with a live representative at Cox.com/hurricane.
