On their sixth afternoon camped on the sidewalk of Belleville Street, a dozen neighbors seeking refuge from sweltering, dark homes stood watch over the remains of Algiers Point's public enemy No. 1. It had been a 40-foot oak tree, uprooted by Hurricane Isaac and tipped precariously into the power lines across the street. 
 
 The surrounding blocks went dark for days. Algiers Point, because of its high concentration of big, fallen trees, became one of the city's neighborhoods where Isaac's mass outages lingered longest. 
 
 The New Orleans City Council has called a hearing for this morning to hammer Entergy's officials about the recovery. On its eve, as of 6 p.m. Monday, Entergy had restored power to 89.6 percent of the homes and businesses in New Orleans that lost it after the storm, leaving 16,772 still in the dark. In Jefferson Parish, just 69 percent of power has been restored, with 52,566 left to go. 
 
 A 90-year-old man without power at his home died of heat stroke in Jefferson Parish, where Parish President John Young has been the loudest critic of Entergy's "snail's pace" response to Isaac, a Category 1 hurricane. 
 
 Overheated residents, too, have targeted their wrath at Entergy. 
 
 "What burns my ass is there's no reason in the world it should have to be like this," said Melvin Odenwald, whose Algiers Point house is well above 100 degrees after six days without power. 
 
 "After customers have been without power for days, you can certainly understand the frustration," said Bill Mohl, president and CEO of Entergy Louisiana. But the company has made "very good progress" in the wake of a sluggish storm that knocked out power to more than half the customers in the state, delayed repair crews and complicated recovery. 
 
 In St. John the Baptist Parish, where flooding forced thousands out of their homes, power had been restored to 63 percent by Monday night, leaving 7,183 still out. In St. Charles Parish, 2,256 homes and business remained dark Monday. In St. Bernard, 92 percent had been restored, with 1,434 still without power. In Plaquemines Parish, drowned in the storm, 8,610 remained without power Monday and restoration is expected to take much longer because of mass flooding and damage. 
 
 In sum, more than 600,000 homes and business in Louisiana -- of the 704,000 that lost power -- were back up and running by Monday night. 
 
 There are now 10,800 people in Louisiana working 16-hour shifts to restore power, Mohl said. 
 
 But they weren't working quickly enough in Algiers, as far as the neighbors were concerned. 
 
 The 40-foot oak remained slung across the street for five days. 
 
 District City Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer visited several times a day to check on it during her patrols of the neighborhood. Council Vice President Jackie Clarkson stopped by to see it, too, said Tim Masterson, who lives on Belleville. 
 
 Tree trimmers came, but they couldn't cut it without Entergy; Entergy said they couldn't deal with it without tree trimmers. 
 
 "The coordination aspect makes it more difficult -- when it's a tree and a pole, that seems to be a little more complicated," Palmer said. 
 
 Neighbors referred to it as an Abbott and Costello show. 
 
 Tales of the tree made their way around the block to Claire and Melvin Odenwald, who now also blame the tree for their six days without power -- which they believe might have killed their 60-pound dog Penny had they not taken her for periodic, air-conditioned rides in their truck, sometimes in the middle of the night. 
 
 "She was suffering, just in a really bad state," Melvin Odenwald said of his beloved black dog's 3 a.m. panting. "My poor Penny. If I wouldn't have gotten up last night, I just don't know if she would have made it." 
 
 Unable to get relief from Entergy on Sunday afternoon, a crew of hot, aggravated and sunburned neighbors fetched their chain saws and began to hack the tree to pieces on their own, said Tim Masterson and Ken Braden, neither of whom would confirm nor deny their participation. By the time police officers came and ordered that they stop, they had chopped the tree nearly down to its stump. 
 
 A bucket truck from Georgia arrived Monday at 7 a.m. and got to work on the lines. 
 
 The group -- now folk heroes in Algiers Point -- gathered outside Mary and Nicole Todd's house to watch the electricians string new lines. 
 
 "We don't blame (the electrical crews)," said Nicole Todd, who offered an electrician a free place to stay if he comes back to town under better circumstances. 
 
 Power in the neighborhood blinked back on at 4 p.m. 
 
 Claire Galofaro can be reached at cgalofaro@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4828. ||||| Utility companies say more than 500,000 have lost power as Hurricane Isaac moves through southeast Louisiana, bringing wind, rain and flooding. 
 
 Most of the outages Wednesday are in areas around New Orleans as Isaac lashes the area with 80 mph winds. 
 
 The Category 1 hurricane has pushed water over a rural levee to flood some homes, knocked out power and immersed beach-front roads in Louisiana and Mississippi as it makes a drenching slog inland from the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Wind gusts of more than 60 mph and sheets of rain pelted New Orleans, where people braced themselves for the storm behind levees that were strengthened after the much stronger Hurricane Katrina hit seven years ago to the day.
– Hurricane Isaac was no Katrina, but it has left its mark on Louisiana all the same. It's been almost a week since the storm hit, and in that time utility companies have restored power to 92% of homes, according to Entergy—meaning nearly 57,000 homes are still without power. Residents are furious, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports; at least one 90-year-old has died of heat stroke in his powerless home. Some impatient New Orleans residents even took matters into their own hands, sneaking out at night to cut up a massive felled tree that had hit a power line—a feat that the paper says has made them "folk heroes" in their neighborhood. There has also been significant flooding, an all-too-familiar situation for some residents. One resident says that when the insurance company asked for details about the flood, "I told them, you can just use my claim from Aug. 29 seven years ago."