Entergy (NYSE:ETR) officials said Thursday the company has activated two of the eight transmission lines serving the New Orleans area, allowing them to restore power to parts of downtown.

Of the 904,000 Entergy customers who lost power in the state during Hurricane Ida, about 137,000 customers had been restored. Entergy Louisiana had 41 of 168 substations running, while Entergy New Orleans had restored 13, with 14 still out of service.

Including Mississippi, nearly 950,000 Entergy customers lost power, second only to Hurricane Katrina’s 1.1 million. The company said it has restored power to a total of 172,000 customers and expected to complete restoration Thursday in Mississippi.

As of 1 p.m. Thursday, the company said it has counted 10,212 poles, 13,297 spans of wire and 2,223 transformers damaged or destroyed on its distribution systems. For the transmission system, 99 of 222 affected substations and 79 of 209 affected lines had returned to service as of 8 a.m. More than 1,350 miles of transmission lines remained out of service.

Officials said they will provide estimated restoration times after completing damage assessments by the end of Thursday. The company said Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes were heavily damaged.

“We had a long, long day yesterday, but a good day, and we saw a lot of progress,” Entergy New Orleans CEO Deanna Rodriguez said at a press conference Thursday. “So after turning on power to New Orleans East early Wednesday, we’ve continued to make significant progress in the restoration efforts here in New Orleans and across the state. We expect to complete assessing all damage today. And then we can begin providing estimated restoration times for customers. And we know that’s what everybody wants.”

Entergy Louisiana CEO Phillip May said the “vast majority” of the Baton Rouge area will see service restored by Wednesday.

Entergy’s Ninemile Unit 6, a 553-MW combined cycle plant in Jefferson Parish, was restored to service Thursday, along with the 115-kV Market Street-Michoud transmission line, restoring power to St. Charles Parish and the Little Gypsy power station in Montz, La.

On Wednesday, the utility had begun restoring power to some areas of New Orleans East thanks to a transmission line from Slidell on the northern side of Lake Pontchartrain and the 132-MW New Orleans Power Station, which the utility was using as a switching station to parse power deliveries.

Six other transmission lines serving the city and surrounding parishes remained out of service.

But the utility was able to restore power to parts of New Orleans’ uptown, midtown, central business district, New Orleans East and the Carrollton area.

“We are in close coordination with the city to identify critical locations in need of backup generation to power first responders and community shelters,” Rodriguez said. “As of yesterday, we provided backup generation to seven … cooling shelters and seven New Orleans Fire Department stations across the city.”

May said the utility will continue to focus on restoring power to “critical infrastructure” for “the next day or so … hospitals, sewer intake, municipal pumping systems, those kinds of things.”

He said restoring power to hotels to house the National Guard and 21,000 utility workers in the state — 4,000 of whom are in New Orleans — would also be a priority. However, May said some utility workers may be housed in tents, particularly “as you get into the most devastated part of our state, those lower bayou parishes.”

“We have a very large and capable, highly experienced, logistics team that is focused 24/7 on finding beds, finding food, finding laundry, finding gas,” he continued. “We are essentially moving a large army, and that takes an enormous amount of effort.”

May responded to criticism over how Entergy used the controversial New Orleans Power Station in the restoration. Although the company had promoted the plant, which went into operation last year, for its black start capabilities, May said engineers decided it was more prudent to use it as a “shock absorber” as it began restoring power using the Slidell line.

“Does New Orleans Power Station have the ability to black start? Absolutely. Is that the preferred path? No, it is not,” he said. “Can I start my car up and drive down Interstate 10 with all the debris we see on there with no [spare tires]? Oh, you can absolutely do that. But is that the right thing to do? If you can … load up spares in the back in your trunk and then make that trip, that obviously is the better course of action.”

Officials also acknowledged their power outage maps were not always accurate because of problems with cell and fiber communications.

Meanwhile, Louis Armstrong International Airport said Delta Airlines had begun limited service Wednesday, with Jet Blue expecting to resume operations Friday and Alaska Airlines and American Airlines planning resumption Saturday.