LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — In the midst of hurricane season, local utility companies are geared up for what mother nature may bring.

News 10 spoke with Mary Laurent, Slemco communications coordinator, about how crews are already preparing to keep the lights on when a storm hits.  

“Every year we begin in March and we update our emergency restoration plan, whether it’s for a hurricane or tornadoes or straight line winds or whatever. We update that every year,” Laurent said. “We always beef up our inventory of poles and transformers and that sort of thing. We always renew our contracts with contractors and other cooperatives to come in and help restore power should a storm hit here in our service area. So we always do that every year and that’s kind of one of those things that’s automatic and we make sure that we have all of our T’s crossed in our eyes dotted.”

For residents it is recommended to make a game plan and have everything ready. 

“They have batteries, they have supplies, they have food, they have water, that sort of thing because if there is a full scale hurricane that hits here, it could be that they’re going to be several days without power just because the infrastructure is so devastated, that’s just the way it is,” Laurent explained. “Make sure that they have a way to get all their prescriptions and their medications and that sort of thing, and that they have a place to go because some people do need oxygen or they do need a CPAP or something where they’re going to need access to power and so they either need to have a backup generator or they need to have another place to go until they get their power back.”

Laurent suggests for residents to be more informed an prepared they should look to their local government agencies and city resources.

She adds, “The best way to be comfortable is to make sure that you’re adequately prepared and the Cooperative Extension Service has really good preparation articles. The Department of Emergency Preparedness and the Governor’s office has really good information that people can use to get prepared.”

Laurent added that a clear plan and calm mindset can go a long ways for hurricane preparedness.

I think you can be calm if you are prepared, if you have adequate supplies and you know where to go and you have a plan, I think that in of itself can help you be calm and be ready for anything that can happen.” Laurent said.

If you should need help she said give them a call. 

“We do have people on call 24/7 to restore power. Lightning is a big thing, particularly out in the areas where it’s farmland and it’s just flat land. Power poles are the highest thing out there. So they do tend to get hit by lightning and lightning is our biggest cause of outages other than hurricanes, of course and so if they need us, call us. We’re here,” said Laurent. 

For more information, residents are asked to contact Slemco at 337-896-5384 or see more on their website.

Latest news