8 P.M. UPDATE:
According to an Entergy Arkansas outage map, 2,408 customers were without power at 8 p.m. Monday.
Entergy Arkansas wrote in a tweet shortly before 7 p.m. Monday that most of the remaining power outages were located in Pulaski County. The utility projected that the “vast majority” of the rest of the outages would be restored by 10 p.m. Monday.
Read Tuesday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
5:30 P.M. UPDATE:
An Entergy Arkansas outage map showed that 4,200 customers were still without power as of 5 p.m. Monday.
Kerri Case, a spokeswoman for the utility, said 10 p.m. Monday remains the expected time that most people will have power restored.
“Sometimes those numbers do slide on us if damage is more difficult to repair than expected, but crews are still on the ground methodically working through this as fast as is safely possible,” she said.
2:15 P.M. UPDATE:
The number of Entergy Arkansas customers without power has dropped to just under 6,000, the utility’s online outage map showed around 2 p.m.
Some residents were given 2 p.m. restoration times, and the "vast majority" were told that power would be back on by 10 p.m. Monday, Energy spokeswoman Kerri Case said.
“I think [utility crews are] doing their best,” said west Little Rock resident Kerena Cannon, who returned home over the weekend from a vacation. “It could be worse.”
She added that “there are so many more tragedies,” referencing the deaths of 17 people when a duck boat sank Thursday evening amid a thunderstorm with near-hurricane strength winds on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Mo.
Cannon said that at one point, she was wrongly told the electricity was back on. She added that the utility has changed the estimated restoration time several times.
“It was really miserable last night,” Cannon said, noting that her home doesn’t have a generator to provide some of the basic functions like air conditioning.
Other residents, including THV 11 This Morning co-anchor Rob Evans, sought hotel accommodations while waiting out the power failure.
"One has Wi-Fi. One has a pool. And daddy has air conditioning. #thankful," Evans said Sunday evening in a tweet.
The city of Little Rock on Monday opened its West Central and Southwest community shelters for those in need of cool air. They were set to remain open until 9 p.m.
Around other parts of Pulaski County on Monday, residents and city workers cleared tree limbs from road.
Out-of-state linemen were also scattered throughout the county, making needed repairs to power lines affected by the storms that hit the state Friday night and into Saturday.
EARLIER STORY:
More than 8,700 Entergy Arkansas customers remained without power Monday morning, two days after strong storms barreled through the state.
By 11 a.m., the majority of the power failures — around 7,000 — were centered in western Pulaski County. Affected areas included the Ferndale community and west Little Rock neighborhoods off Kanis Road.
More than 1,000 workers were making repairs across the state, and the "vast majority" of customers should have power restored by 10 p.m., an Entergy spokesman said.
More than 48,000 customers in the county were without power at the height of the outages early Saturday, Entergy spokeswoman Kerri Case told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Statewide, the total reached nearly 64,000.
About 300 linemen, primarily from Louisiana and Texas, were called in to assist in the restoration process. An additional 200 workers were assigned to clear debris.
Case said around 2,000 miles of distribution line was damaged or destroyed statewide in thunderstorms Friday night and into Saturday morning. Strong winds also felled thousands of trees, blocking roadways as crews responded to the power failures.
Linemen have also been grappling with extreme heat, but Monday's forecast is expected to bring some slight relief, according to the National Weather Service.
High temperatures in the upper 80s to mid 90s and lower humidity levels are forecast across the state.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Jaime Dunaway contributed to this story.