Entergy is taking steps to address issues and make upgrades to equipment at its Kolbs Substation on 39^th Street near Avalon Avenue.

The news of the upgrades comes shortly after an outage that affected 4,369 customers in portions of Port Arthur and Groves on Wednesday. All of the affected customers are now receiving power from other substations, according to information from Entergy.

Affected Entergy customers will likely see a letter early next week from Vernon Pierce, vice president of customer service, regarding the outages.

“We deeply regret and apologize for the unplanned power outages you may have experienced in recent days. I want to assure you we have a plan of action to address the situation so we can give you the reliable power you expect and deserve from Entergy Texas,” Pierce says in the letter.

The outages, he said, are related to work underway at the Kolbs Substation and a project to modernize and upgrade the substation equipment to proactively prepare for increased demand from growth in the area is underway.

With power transferred to other substations, Entergy was allowed do de-energize Kolbs as they work to determine the root cause of outages.

“De-energizing Kolbs allows us to go in and do a very thorough inspection and check equipment,” Debi Derrick, media spokesperson for Entergy Texas, said.

Not only are crews checking equipment, they are also using special infrared cameras to find ‘hotspots’ where repairs may need to be. Any existing or potential problems found during these inspections will be addressed immediately.

In addition, Entergy put into place a ‘predictive dialer’ that will call customers impacted in Wednesday’s outage and inform them of the projects in place.

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