Hurricanes and economic storm snare utilities

It's been a tough time for their investors and customers as well and no one is quite sure how the nation's deteriorating economy will play out.

New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. had not fully restored power to customers after Hurricane Gustav struck the Louisiana coast on Labor Day when Ike smashed the Texas coast. The storms cut power to nearly 1.7 million Entergy customers in four states. The price tag for turning the lights back on: an estimated $1 billion to $1.2 billion.

The damage in the Midwest and New England have yet to be tallied after 6 million homes and businesses went dark, in some place for more than a week.

That pain, of course, will likely be felt again consumers.

Customers of two Entergy units, Gulf States Louisiana and Entergy Louisiana, already are paying a $1 billion tab over 10 years for hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to set up a storm reserve fund.

Entergy New Orleans, filed for federal bankruptcy reorganization in October 2005 after Katrina wiped out almost its entire customer base. The company emerged 20 months later after receiving $200 million in federal funding.

Entergy this week said it had $2.7 billion on cash and equivalents on hand as of Aug. 31, which it said was adequate to cover its demands.

But this storm season, as violent as it was, came with an even stronger economic gale.

Two weeks before the Entergy announcement, Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group Inc., the nation's largest wholesale power seller, went on the block in a fire sale.