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Entergy Texas announced Thursday it recently completed a series of infrastructure upgrades that will help protect the City of Port Arthur from extreme weather events.

The service reliability project, company officials said, consisted of upgrades designed to the newly developed extreme wind guidelines, which involved replacing approximately 240 old utility poles, replacing aging power lines with new wires and making additional improvements to the overall electrical system.

Upgrades were made in the downtown district along Proctor Street and Houston Avenue, as well as Lakefront Drive by Lamar State College Port Arthur.

The equipment installed is designed to withstand weather events as strong as a Category 4 hurricane.

“The reliability and resiliency that this project has brought to the city has been amazing,” Port Arthur City Manager Ron Burton said.

“The upgrades will assist The Port of Port Arthur, city departments and Lamar State College Port Arthur. For the first time in years, the city was not affected by the recent storms and cold weather that normally caused outages.”

The project was originally expected to cost approximately $7.2 million.

However, through strategic planning and collaboration of various Entergy Texas teams, the project was completed under budget for $5 million, Entergy officials said.

“These upgrades will benefit customers by making the electrical system in the downtown district more reliable, reducing the risk of outages, and improving the overall quality of the electrical system to allow for additional growth,” said Jeremy Flowers, Entergy Texas operations coordinator.