New Orleans   There for all of the world to see and experience is New Orleans in all of its glory and damned if the lights don’t go off and show our ass instead of our smiling faces!

This is what a cover-up reads like, thanks to the Association Press “explanation,” if that’s what you call the statement from Entergy, the giant middle-south utility, and the only Fortune 500 company headquartered in the city, and the Superdome management company:

“A joint statement from Entergy New Orleans, which provides power to the stadium, and Superdome operator SMG shed some light on the chain of events, although they weren’t sure about the source of the problem. It apparently started at the spot where Entergy feeds power into the stadium’s lines.  “A piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system,” the statement said. “Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue. … Entergy and SMG will continue to investigate the root cause of the abnormality.”  The FBI quickly ruled out terrorism, and the New Orleans Fire Department dismissed reports that a fire might have been the cause.” [emphasis added]

We’ll wait for the review, but the only Super Bowl bet that I would have been happy to handle is the fact that 100% of New Orleanians absolutely know the fault undoubtedly rests squarely with Entergy and its usual half-stepping.

Few have forgiven the Entergy delays after Katrina and the fact that power flows sometimes miles across the city and can still shut us down in a hard rain.  After Issac this last fall, the delays lasted weeks for many even though the storm missed New Orleans.  Entergy blames the trees but takes no steps to invest in putting lines underground or protecting lines from water, when they are underground.  Meanwhile we pay heavy prices for energy here despite being firmly located in the oil and gas belt of the Gulf, but even as rates go up, service is sketchy and infrastructure investment is marginal.

Count on the fact that the executives of Entergy are feted regularly, but Super Bowl visitors and viewers once again got a good look, albeit in the dark, from the Superdome once again, just as they did in 2005 at Katrina, of the New Orleans reality when the party mask is removed.