No Electricity? Have No Fear, New Orleans!
DC's Pepco Volunteers to Come to the Rescue

(New Orleans, LA) — The remnants of Tropical Storm Isaac, formerly Hurricane Isaac, finally began to push out of Louisiana and Mississippi. And as the storm clouds parted, the flood waters began to recede, and Clint Eastwood talked to a chair, the next task at hand for the Gulf Coast was a return to normalcy. Part of that normalcy means electricity; over 800,000 residents and businesses found themselves without power in Isaac's aftermath.

Early estimates had power restoration occurring no sooner than the middle of next week, which made many officials and residents asking for help from outside the region.

And, as has been practiced in the past, power companies from around the country began to come to the rescue. When over one million residents found themselves without power in the Washington, DC area after the June 29, 2012, storm, DC-area power company Pepco finally put out the call for assistance. Aside from not letting other power companies into the region over the weekend, in order to save on overtime costs and, in the process, bonuses for top Pepco executives, the out-of-town companies bravely helped put the area's power grid back together.

Pepco is now seeking to return the favor, sending crews to New Orleans to provide assistance. The problem: New Orleans doesn't want Pepco.

"We see how 'well' they do in DC," said a spokesman New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), "and we don't really think their being here will help. We want our power back by September 5, not December 5."