Emergency planners from the Portland region's largest utilities gathered Friday to hear a presentation on the challenges Entergy New Orleans has faced post-Hurricane Katrina.

Entergy, an investor-owned utility and the only supplier of electricity to all of New Orleans, filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 23, 2005, as a result of the largest natural disaster in the country's history.

Dan Packer, president and CEO of Entergy New Orleans, spoke to employees of the Bonneville Power Administration, Northwest Natural Gas, Pacificorp and others about preparing for unexpected events.

Things we never thought we'd be involved in as a utility we found ourselves doing, said Packer. We changed our mission from just doing electricity to search and rescue.

Packer was one of four utility employees to remain at the city's command center after New Orleans was evacuated due to massive flooding.

The storm left 182 transmission lines out of commission, destroyed 17,400 distribution poles and affected 28,500 distribution circuit miles. One hundred percent of the New Orleans service area was without power for the first time in the utility's history.

In the weeks after the storm, more than 130 companies and 13,000 workers from around the country arrived to help Entergy restore electricity to the city.

But the company is facing further threats due to the massive restoration costs that could more than double electricity rates, said Packer.

The utility is now providing power to 70,000 customers, a far cry from the 200,000 customers they served before the storm. And more than 20 percent of its customers live below the poverty line.

There are no customers paying bills-and they can't afford higher costs, said Packer. We need federal assistance to get out of bankruptcy.