Shreveport, Bossier residents growing frustrated with frequent, prolonged power outages (2024)

About 3,700 Southwestern Electric Power Company customers in Caddo and Bossier parishes woke up Thursday without power after a days-long storm caused widespread, multi-day outages, a situation about which many are starting to notice a pattern.

SWEPCO's customers and regulators want more reliable electricity during storms, and though the utility throws significant resources at restoring power in the wake of wind and rain, northwest Louisiana residents now often look at looming dark clouds as a sign they may soon again be sitting in the dark. The utility has said it's taking proactive measures to ensure power reaches people's homes even through torrential downpours, but their customers have few other options available than trusting SWEPCO or buying a generator.

"Usually if there's a storm in the area we know that it's going to blink and it's going to go off," said Bossier City resident Cindy Baswell. "It's just constantly a pain in the butt."

SWEPCO largely hit its targets for outage frequency and duration between 2021-23, according to the Louisiana Public Service Commission. But that data excludes utilities' largest-scale outages, those which leave more than 10% of its customer base without power.

The first anniversary of a massive, Ark-La-Tex-wide storm and the deadly, weeklong power outage it caused is coming June 16. That storm caused unprecedented damage to SWEPCO's transmission system, which the utility said required great effort to restore.

Whether SWEPCO's infrastructure would stand through another such maelstrom remains to be seen. For people like Baswell, who said outages at her home have become noticeably more frequent in recent years, there's frustration, confusion and risk.

"It does go off here a lot," Baswell said. "I feel like it's going to happen again."

SWEPCO spokeswoman Michelle Marcotte said the utility is actively working on strengthening its power grid, but said extreme weather puts strains on their system that can lead to outages and extended restoration times.

"SWEPCO is consistently performing ongoing infrastructure repairs and hardening. SWEPCO is hopeful that its system is resilient enough to withstand significant wind damage; however, there are many variables at play during severe storms. Those variables include the amount of rainfall that occurs along with the wind, which can loosen soil and increase the likelihood of trees falling into lines, even if those trees are outside the right of way," Marcotte said in an email.

Still, one of their regulators said he believes the utility needs to do more to improve its system's reliability in light of frequent outages.

"SWEPCO should do a better job keeping the electricity on," said Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell.

When the storms come

Wind and rain blew into the Ark-La-Tex late Monday afternoon and didn't truly let up until late Wednesday night. The storm caused outages almost as soon as it began, and about 35,000 customers in the Ark-La-Tex were without power at the peak of its impact.

"While SWEPCO employees and contractors are working quickly and safely to restore service, the additional lines of storms brought a second day of damaging winds and intense lightning that slowed progress and impacted transmission and distribution infrastructure," the utility said in a Wednesday news release. "Damage assessors report widespread damage with downed power lines, significant flooded areas and fallen trees and limbs throughout the area."

SWEPCO reported the torrential rain and the flooding it caused created significant delays in efforts to restore customers' power even beyond repairing the kind of damage more closely associated with straight-line wind and falling trees.

"Extensive flooding and hard-to-reach, sometimes treacherous terrain, requires crews and contractors to use specialized track equipment to access the areas," SWEPCO said in another Wednesday news release. "Flooding creates a unique and dangerous restoration environment. Flooding can make it more difficult to safely make repairs, which may result in longer than usual power restoration times."

Around noon Thursday, more than 7,500 Louisiana customers still were without power. It was worst in Sabine Parish, where more than 4,100 customers were without power. At that time, nearly 1,400 Caddo and about 350 Bossier customers still didn't have power.

Brian George was one of the Louisianans who lost power this week. The Desoto Parish resident said he lost power Monday night and didn't have it fully restored until Tuesday night.

"I have lived everywhere and this is the worst electricity grid I've ever been a part of," George said. "As soon as I look and see the forecast says it's going to rain, I wonder if I have to start getting things ready."

George moved to Stonewall four years ago. He and his neighbors had consistent outage problems even then, and when he attended a SWEPCO community meeting he was promised a multi-million dollar project was underway to solve them.

George has texted a SWEPCO representative every time the power has gone out at his house since then, which he said is not an infrequent occurrence. Recently that representative told him the project now is on hold.

He is, to say the least, frustrated by the frequent outages, and now the solution he was promised seems like it's out of reach.

"We shouldn't have to live like that," George said.

Baswell said her home stayed lit during this week's storm except for a brief flicker of darkness when the rain first started falling. Though she was one of the more than 250,000 SWEPCO customers who lost power last June, she's now better equipped for outages.

After that storm, her son had to travel to Arkansas to find a mid-size generator for them, now hooked up to a new AC window unit and a small refrigerator. She said she junked an older freezer and refrigerator in which food regularly spoiled during frequent outages.

To be ready for the next outage was not cheap.

"We couldn't see an end in sight and I just said 'I can't deal with it anymore,'" Baswell said. "I didn't want to spend $12,000 of our money to get a whole-home generator. They're very expensive."

For Baswell and her husband, Ed Baswell, the June 2023 outage crisis was more than an inconvenience. Ed Baswell was hospitalized due to dehydration at that time, which Cindy Baswell blames on the heat in their home when their AC was powerless.

"I don't understand why they don't put revenue into upgrading and giving everyone the best quality of life. These are...essential. We have to have it. We're so use to it in the South. We have to have air conditioning, especially when you're my age," she said.

SWEPCO customers have experienced numerous smaller-scale and shorter-lasting outages since last June. In August, SWEPCO Director of Communications Amanda Keeny said the utility is always looking for ways to assure customers' homes stay powered.

"We continually identify projects to improve service reliability and strengthen the power grid. Each project is customer-focused and designed to provide a higher level of service through new technology, system upgrades and innovations to the power grid," she said.

Keeny in August said SWEPCO would invest $110 million into distribution line reliability programs and projects over the next five years to replace aging infrastructure and strengthen the grid, as well as spending $40 million on data collection technology.

Keeny also said the utility would improve its tree-trimming circuit plans, such as by developing targeted plans for vegetation management along new and expanded easem*nts and integrating their distribution line reliability and tree management efforts.

"We’re doing everything we can to increase the effectiveness of the vegetation management program," Keeny said in August.

Marcotte said SWEPCO is consistently working to harden its power grid. She identified those ongoing efforts in an email:

• Several projects are underway to rebuild and strengthen transmission lines across the SWEPCO territory, to make those lines stronger and more resilient during disruptive events such as the June 16, 2023 storm.
• In 2023, SWEPCO completed over $62 million of reliability work on its system.
• The distribution reliability plan has emphasized focus on repeat-outage locations since the June storm to mitigate more predictable future outages. Mitigation at those locations includes tree trimming, replacement of poles and complete rebuilds of line sections.
• SWEPCO operates approximately 30,000 miles of power lines, which are continuously monitored.
• SWEPCO constantly develops and revises plans to maintain, repair, or improve the energy infrastructure. 
• In Louisiana, crucial steps to enhance reliability include rerouting and rebuilding critical distribution power lines; addressing fast-growing vegetation; scheduling repairs and maintenance issues; and right of way easem*nt expansions
• SWEPCO routinely goes neighborhood by neighborhood to prune or remove trees interfering with electric utility lines. Additional services may be necessary for the removal of invasive species or for extraordinary clearance not covered by normal trimming.

A good record on outages

By and large, SWEPCO has one of the strongest records on outage frequency and duration in Louisiana, according to Brandon Frey, executive secretary for the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

Utilities like SWEPCO are graded on differing federal metrics for outage frequency and duration. SWEPCO reports those metrics for both its legacy grid, which includes Shreveport, and for rural areas from when it bought Valley Electric Membership Corporation.

The System Average Interruption Duration Index tracks how long a utility's customers are without power on average in a given year. The System Average Interruption Frequency Index tracks the average number of interruptions customers experience in a given year.

Frey said the scores SWEPCO reports to the Louisiana Public Service Commission are state-specific and the formulas used to determine them do not factor in Texas and Arkansas customers' experiences.

SWEPCO's SAIDI target is 2.87 hours, Frey said. In 2021, their SAIDI score was 1.94 hours; in 2022 it was 2.29 hours; and in 2023 was 2.68 hours — meaning the average duration of outages got slightly worse each year, but stayed within target.

SWEPCO's SAIDI target for its Valley Electric Membership Corporation grid is 3.23 hours, Frey said. In 2021, the SAIDI score was 4.08 hours; in 2022 it was 4.32 hours; and in 2023 was 3.09 hours — meaning the scores are improving under SWEPCO ownership.

SWEPCO's SAIFI target is 2.28 outages per customer per year. In 2021, their SAIFI score was 0.80; in 2022 it was 0.82; in 2023 it was 0.88— meaning the number of interruptions customers experienced increased each year but stayed well within their target.

SWEPCO's SAIFI target for its Valley Electric Membership Corporation grid starting in 2022 was 2.56. In 2022, their SAIFI score was 1.26 and in 2023 it was 1.03— meaning the number of interruptions decreased.

Frey said these scores do not include data from massive power outages in which more than 10% of the customer base is without power because that kind of data created by freak incidents would skew the effectiveness of the scores.

Frey said SWEPCO's scores are some of the best in the state. But statistics don't always translate to customer satisfaction, and those like Baswell who feel they'd be at risk in another prolonged outage are looking for options.

"It's lower income back here. We're some of the smaller homes. My street is full of retired people, and $12,000 is hard to pull out of your savings when you're 70-something," she said. "You ain't going to put it back in from your pension and Social Security very fast."

After losing food, appliances and a computer to power issues, George is also thinking about buying a generator. He doesn't want to— he expect it will cost between $10-15,000— but he feels like he's out of options.

"I've considered it for the last two years, and now I'm seriously considering it," George said.

Foster Campbell said he doesn't believe Louisianans even should have to be asking themselves about the cost of generators as a hedge against outages.

"It's only a solution for people who can afford it, which most people in this area cannot," Campbell. "That's an elite solution. The average guy cannot afford them, and we should not have to go get generators to have electricity. That is SWEPCO's job."