Joint Statement from Entergy, LSED and SMG Regarding the Hiring of an Independent Third Party to Conduct an Assessment of Cause of Super Bowl Power Outage

Third party assessment will supplement root cause analysis efforts already underway

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Feb 05, 2013, 01:29 ET

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Entergy New Orleans, Inc., the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District (LSED), and SMG, the management company of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, today announced plans to jointly hire an independent third party expert to conduct an independent assessment of the cause of the partial power outage during Super Bowl XLVII.

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Entergy New Orleans, the LSED and SMG will jointly select the independent third party, and prior to selection, the parties expect to discuss the selection with the NFL.

In the meantime, Entergy is continuing with its own root-cause analysis into the origin of the outage.

Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed to open a circuit causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue and prevent a larger and more protracted outage. Entergy and SMG subsequently coordinated start up procedures, ensuring that full power was safely restored to the Superdome.

SOURCE Entergy Corporation