JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - About 34,000 Mississippi utility customers were still waiting Friday for their power to be restored after Hurricane Isaac.
Entergy Mississippi reported about 18,000 customers without power in Mississippi after 7 p.m. Friday. That's down from 60,000 at the peak of power outages during Isaac, the utility said.
Eight electric cooperatives had a combined 16,000 customers without service at the same hour. That's down from 83,000 cooperative customers without power early Thursday morning.
Mississippi Power Co. said it had restored power to all its customers who could receive it just before midnight Thursday. The Southern Co. unit said that at points during the storm, nearly one third of its 186,000 customers lost power.
"I want to thank our customers for their patience, and the Mississippi Power crews for their outstanding work," Mississippi Power CEO Ed Day said in a statement.
Entergy had the most outages Friday night in Warren County at 3,300. Hinds, Lincoln, Pike, Copiah and Franklin counties also had significant numbers of customers without power. The company said earlier Friday that damage to its system was worst in the Natchez, Brookhaven, McComb and Gloster areas and that workers may not hook up remaining customers in those locales until Sunday.
"Our teams are working 16-hour days to restore power to all of our customers, and we won't stop until every customer that can receive power is restored," Entergy Mississippi CEO Haley Fisackerly said in a statement. "We have damage over a large part of the 45 counties we serve in western Mississippi, and we expect the restoration process to continue through the weekend."
The cooperatives with the largest number of outages remaining include McComb-based Magnolia Electric Power Association, with more than 9,000, and Lorman-based Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association, with more than 5,000.
The Electric Power Associations of Mississippi said its combined total of 16,000 outages includes more than 1,000 meters that can't be reconnected because of flooding or damage.
Entergy Corp.'s problems were far worse in Louisiana, where 445,000 customers were waiting for power Friday evening. The company also had 5,000 outages in Arkansas, where Isaac's remnants blew through Friday.