More than 1 million residents in the Gulf Coast, primarily Entergy Corp. customers, remain without power Aug. 30 after a powerful hurricane slammed the region, knocking out transmission lines and causing widespread damage.

"At the end of the day, the storm surge, the rain, the wind all had devastating impacts across southeast Louisiana," Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a video posted the morning of Aug. 30 on his Twitter feed. "Virtually no one has electricity in this part of our state right now."

Entergy New Orleans LLC said Aug. 30 that it is assessing damages from Hurricane Ida.

"It would be premature for me to speculate at this time when power will be restored," Entergy New Orleans President and CEO Deanna Rodriguez said during a midday news conference with New Orleans city officials Aug. 30. "Until we can collect the damage assessment, we can't give you that answer."

Ida made landfall at about 11:55 a.m. CT on Aug. 29 in southeastern Louisiana as a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 150 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The first landfall of the powerful storm was reported near Port Fourchon, La., which is about 100 miles southwest of New Orleans.

By midmorning Aug. 30, Ida was moving across Mississippi as a tropical storm.

More than 1 million customers were without power in Louisiana shortly after 10 a.m. ET on Aug. 30, including 859,300 Entergy customers, according to PowerOutage.US, a project that tracks power outages in the country. There were 134,643 outages reported in Mississippi at the time.

On Aug. 29, Entergy reported that "all eight transmission lines that deliver power into the New Orleans area" were out of service.

"When this occurred, it caused a load imbalance in the area and resulted in generation in the area coming offline," Entergy said in a news release. The company said it was providing backup generation to the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board.

"Of the eight transmission lines, we don't know if one is severely damaged," Rodriguez said during the news conference. "It could be minor damage that could allow us to get that fixed more quickly. I just don't have a good answer for you yet."

As of 9 a.m. ET, Entergy reported that 216 substations, 207 transmission lines and more than 2,000 miles of transmission lines were out of service.

"We know of one transmission line that spans the Mississippi River that is down," the company said Aug. 30 in a late-morning update. "The destroyed tower withstood Hurricane Katrina that struck the area in 2005."

Entergy also warned that some customers could face power outages "for weeks" and said it would be "premature to speculate at this time when power will be restored, given the extent of the damage."

Energy New Orleans said in a tweet Aug. 30 that it "will likely take days to determine the extent of damage to our power grid in metro New Orleans and far longer to restore electrical transmission to the region."

"While 90% of customers will be restored sooner, customers in the hardest-hit area[s] should plan for the possibility of experiencing extended power outages," the company said in an Aug. 29 news release. "Significant damage, flooding and accessibility challenges due to the storm will affect our ability to reach some areas of our territory right away and could delay restoration in those communities."

In harder-to-reach areas, the company said it uses advanced technologies such as infrared cameras, drones and satellite imagery to assess damage by foot, vehicles, airboats, highwater vehicles and helicopters.

"Even so, lack of access in areas like waterways and marshes could delay our damage assessment," Entergy said in an Aug. 30 update.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission shows that Entergy Louisiana LLC's 1,177-MW Waterford 3 nuclear plant is offline and the utility's 968-MW River Bend nuclear plant is operating at reduced capacity.

Ahead of the storm's landfall, U.S. President Joe Biden approved emergency declarations for Louisiana and Mississippi. The declarations authorize direct federal assistance for emergency preparation and protective measures in the states, including for power generation.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Energy Department is coordinating with state and industry partners and other federal agencies on power restoration. As part of that effort, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is helping with immediate power restoration and has activated planning and response teams for help with debris removal, temporary roofing and temporary housing, according to a release from the White House.

In terms of industry mutual assistance, crews from at least 30 states and the District of Columbia were put in place to respond to storm-related power outages, the Edison Electric Institute said.