this morning shortly before 8:00 am cdt, ominously dark clouds from out west brought a potentially severe thunderstorm to portions of north rapides parish, la. the storm did manage to knock out electrical power to parts of north rapides parish from around 8:00 am.
for a time it delivered heavy rain and strong lightning strikes accompanied by loud thunder. thankfully, there was little to no wind associated with the storm. eventually precipitation and stormy weather tapered off and the skies cleared though conditions remain partly cloudy.
around 9:00 am a cleco call center [1800-622-6537] operator named darlene said that cleco had suffered a lightning strike to a part of its grid resulting in around 1,800 customers without power.
shortly thereafter, wst... observed several cleco service utility and bucket trucks working on the lines. cleco had most if not all power restored by noon.
todays forecasted for more scattered thunderstorms until at least 11:00 pm cdt.
