Utility crews hustled to restore electricity across Arkansas on Thursday, reconnecting homes and businesses that lost power when the remnants of Hurricane Gustav lashed the state with high winds and nearly a foot of rain.
Entergy Arkansas on Thursday restored power to about half of the 95,000 customers who were without electric service a day earlier. Work advanced slowly because of continued high winds, downed power lines and flooded roads, company spokesman James Thompson said. As of 4 p.m. Thursday, Entergy Arkansas had nearly 48,000 customers without power.
Meanwhile, the state Health Department says it's keeping busy meeting the medical needs of evacuees from Louisiana who fled the storm.
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"We are determined to give the people that are here the same level of care that we give to our own people," said Dr. William Mason, incident commander for the Arkansas Department of Health's Emergency Operations Center. "We will give them our best."
The department says some evacuees who fled hurricanes Katrina and Rita three years ago are seeing familiar faces in Arkansas.
"We had many return here that were Katrina evacuees and they said they wouldn't think of going anywhere else because of the caring of our community," said Tonia Baker, Mississippi County Health Unit administrator.
The department says two evacuees at a shelter in Crittenden County needed dialysis, and workers were able to help them get their treatment.
There are 49 shelters in 24 counties that are housing more than 2,800 evacuees, in addition to the shelter at Fort Chaffee, which has about 2,300 evacuees. The health department says having that many people living together increases the risk of illness.
"With this many people living in such close quarters, the potential for a disease outbreak such as measles or chicken pox is something we worry about," Mason said. "We have relocated one family from a shelter to a hotel because one of the family members has chicken pox. By relocating these individuals, we were able to prevent the spread of disease throughout the shelter."
As Arkansas deals with assisting evacuees, it's also dealing with what's left of Gustav.
Bismarck recorded 11.5 inches of rain through late-morning Thursday and Hot Springs had 11. More than 10 inches fell at Benton, Jacksonville and Moro Bay.
The bulk of the storm drifted northward into Missouri overnight but clouds and showers lingered.
At Hampton, three people were safely evacuated from their residences to stay with family, he said. Damage was reported to parked cars and power lines from falling tree limbs, but no major injuries were reported, he said.
Steve Bays, hydrologist for the National Weather Service in North Little Rock, said the Ouachita River below Garland County would flood because of releases from Remmel Dam. Arkadelphia would be among the places affected, he said. But Bays said the main concern was flooding where motorists would be in danger at low water crossings, especially after dark.
In Pope County, a section of Arkansas 7 was closed because of flood damage. The state Highway and Transportation department said the damaged section is south of Pelsor. That area had sustained damage in flooding earlier this year, officials said.
"Work crews at this location on Highway 7 had traffic restricted to one land and were beginning repair work from the damage suffered earlier this year when this week's rain caused some cracking to the lane we had open," said engineer Scott Mullis. "Because of the potential instability of the roadway, we decided to close the highway to through traffic."
Also affected by the heavy rainfall was Lake Ouachita State Park, which was closed because of a power failure.