Thousands without power in Arkansas struggle to stay cool

Jason Jones of VOLT Power sets grounds on power lines Friday before replacing damaged utility poles on Pinnacle Valley Road in western Pulaski County.
Jason Jones of VOLT Power sets grounds on power lines Friday before replacing damaged utility poles on Pinnacle Valley Road in western Pulaski County.

Thousands of people remained without power Friday amid temperatures that felt hotter than 100 degrees, days after powerful storms swept through Little Rock and other parts of the state.

About 17,000 customers in Arkansas were still without electricity at 7:30 p.m. Friday, including roughly 7,800 in Pulaski County, according to utility provider Entergy. That was down from the roughly 65,000 without power Thursday morning.

Some areas across Arkansas suffered major damage and aren't expected to have power restored until late Sunday night.

Michael Considine, Entergy's vice president for customer service, said the company is working on restoring power safely and as quickly as possible.

"We don't want our customers to be without power any more than they don't want to be," Considine said.

About 20,000 customers in Pulaski County reported power failures Friday morning, with most of those failures in southwest Little Rock. Entergy said it expects to have 90% of power restored in that area by the end of today.

Thousands of Entergy crewmen from surrounding states are in Arkansas helping clear downed poles and trees that fell on electrical power lines, Considine said. He estimated that more than 100 downed power poles and potentially thousands of miles of wire needed to be inspected.

Entergy spokesman Alison Nelson said the damage in Little Rock was significantly higher than in other parts of the state. She said crews frequently had to circle back after finding additional damage, such as downed trees in yards, that kept them from restoring power.

The sudden surge of storms caught the company off guard.

"It happened so quickly," Nelson said. "We went from zero to 82,000 outages in minutes."

Weather officials warned early Friday that the afternoon's heat index -- which measures how hot the air feels when the humidity is factored in -- could exceed 105 degrees for the southern two-thirds of the state, and a heat advisory was issued for the area from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m.

By 3 p.m., the index had reached 100 degrees for most of the state, said John Lewis at the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.

The afternoon index in Little Rock and North Little Rock was about 100 degrees, he said. Jacksonville in Pulaski County reached 105 degrees, as did much of south Arkansas. The Ozark region in Northwest Arkansas was slightly cooler, hovering between 95 and 100 degrees, Lewis said.

National Weather Service meteorologist Lance Pyle said the agency expects the high temperatures to last through the weekend. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s today and the mid-80s on Sunday.

The heat index will feel much hotter, he said.

"Try to stay cool, stay inside, stay in the shade," Pyle said. "If you're in a house, it gets warm in there, but you don't want to be in the direct sunlight either."

Storms with strong winds tore down trees Wednesday night and lightning strikes damaged electrical infrastructure in Little Rock and other cities along its path. Wind speeds ranged from 50 to 70 miles per hour in central Arkansas, and from 60 to 90 mph in south Arkansas, Lewis said.

Tanesha Green, 28, and Kameron Carlton, 30, didn't see any storm damage around their home off Pine Cone Drive in southwest Little Rock, so they expected power to be restored quickly.

They spent Thursday trying to keep their children -- ages 2, 4 and 7 -- cool in the shade under the trees in their yard. They got cold drinks from a store across the street and "ate up all the Popsicles that was still frozen," Carlton said.

Green said she was especially worried about her son, who has asthma and was having trouble breathing because of the heat.

"We put the kids in the shower maybe three times yesterday," she said.

When the electricity still hadn't come on by the end of the day, and with their cellphones running down, they decided to stay at Carlton's parents' house on Hanover Drive because it had air conditioning.

The couple were still waiting for power to be restored at their home Friday.

Green said she had called Entergy several times and was told that since there were only 75 people without power in her area, crews would work other areas first. She said she was frustrated because it felt like other areas -- "better neighborhoods" -- were being prioritized.

"It's always like that," she said. "It's part of the neighborhood we stay in."

Carlton said they might look for a hotel room if the power failure continued.

Not everyone who lost power sought out a hotel.

Gary Brown, a 58-year-old truck driver who lives downtown just west of Interstate 30, said he went to work and tried to go to sleep in his vehicle about 10 p.m. Thursday, since it was too hot to fall asleep at home.

"I haven't slept in two days," he said.

Residents at the Fred W. Parris Tower on Broadway, which is owned by the Metropolitan Housing Alliance, got power back about 11 a.m. Friday, said Andre Blakely, a division president with Gorman & Co. The Wisconsin-based company manages the tower for the housing authority and is remodeling the property.

"We're back up and running," Blakely said.

The tower has about 250 households, all of which have government-subsidized rent. Tenants lost power after Wednesday's storm, but Blakely said the entire facility will have backup generators after ongoing renovations are complete.

Neighborhood community centers in Little Rock will be open today for people who need to cool off. Many close by 9 p.m., and some won't be open.

Information for this article was contributed by Ginny Monk of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Cooling shelters

Community centers will be open today in Little Rock for residents in need of cool shelter after recent storms that knocked out power in many neighborhoods. The community centers and their hours of operation are:

• Centre at University Park, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., 6401 W. 12th St.

• Southwest Community Center, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., 6401 Baseline Road.

• West Central Community Center, 9 a.m.-6 p.m., 4521 John Barrow Road.

photo

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

John Austin Deerman (left) and Jason Jones of VOLT Power confer Friday as they replace damaged utility poles on Pinnacle Valley Road in western Pulaski County.

A Section on 06/22/2019

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