Pineville, La., April 29, 2020 (2:30 p.m. update) – Cleco has restored power to over 16,000 of the nearly 20,000 customers who experienced power outages following severe thunderstorms that moved through Cleco’s service territory early this morning.

As of 2:30 p.m., Cleco had approximately 3,126 customers without power.  The majority of these remaining power outages are in Rapides Parish, which was one of the hardest hit parishes. 

“We’ve made significant progress, restoring power to over 80 percent of our customers since this morning,” said James Lass, director of distribution operations and emergency management.  “In addition to our local Cleco crews, we’ve mobilized our crews from others areas in the state.  We also have more than 100 contractors assisting us.”

Cleco reminds customers of the following safety tips during storm restoration efforts.

• Stay away from downed or low-hanging power lines and do not touch anything touching a downed power line.  
• Do not connect portable generators to your home’s electrical wiring and never operate portable generators in an enclosed space like a garage.
• If water is getting close to your home or business, turn off individual breakers and then turn off the electricity at the main breaker. 
• Call Cleco at 1-800-622-6537 and 911 to report an unsafe situation with electricity. 

For additional safety tips, please visit www.cleco.com. Follow Cleco on Facebook at @ClecoPower for the latest updates.

Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC is a regional energy holding company that conducts its business operations through its subsidiaries, Cleco Power LLC and Cleco Cajun LLC. Cleco Power is a regulated electric public utility company that owns 10 generating assets with a total nameplate capacity of 3,360 MWs and serves approximately 288,000 customers in Louisiana through its retail business and supplies wholesale power in Louisiana and Mississippi.  Cleco Cajun is an unregulated utility company that owns eight generating assets with a total nameplate capacity of 3,555 MWs, with contracts serving nine Louisiana cooperatives, three wholesale municipal customers and one electric utility.  For more information about Cleco, visit us at www.cleco.com