Officials in the River Valley are bracing for another round of freezing precipitation that may undo long days and nights of work to make roads and highways passable.
“I think this is going to be the biggest one we’ve had,” Kendall Beam, with Sebastian County Emergency Management, said Wednesday morning. “Our Road Department is working like crazy to get caught up before this next round hits.”
The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory that runs until noon today for Washington County, and Fort Smith is under an ice storm warning for the same time frame.
The chance of precipitation in the River Valley on Wednesday night was 60%. There could up to two-tenths of an inch of ice. The low will be 31, according to the weather service.
Beam said roads in Fort Smith were “pretty passable” Wednesday morning while county roads and streets in outlying areas were still slick in spots. Sebastian County offices were closed for the day, he said, because many county employees live outside the city and rely on county roads to get to and from work.
Benton and Washington county offices also were closed Wednesday.
Road Department crews have been working 16- to 20-hour days through the last two days and nights to clear ice from roadways, Beam said.
“We’re just waiting on tonight to see how bad it’s going to get,” he said.
Philip Pevehouse, spokesman for the Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office, said at midday Wednesday county roads were mostly passable, with some areas in southern and southwestern Sebastian County still reporting sleet and patchy ice. Pevehouse said the Sheriff’s Office had just one accident call overnight, and that was for an accident involving a vehicle hitting a deer. He said there had been just a few reports of vehicles sliding off roads and into ditches.
Pevehouse said the Sheriff’s Office has a number of four-wheel-drive vehicles in its fleet and is ready for more ice on the roads if the forecast holds true.
“We’re preparing for tonight,” he said. “We will respond to calls. We may be slower getting there because of conditions, but we will be responding to calls.”
In Crawford County, county offices were open Wednesday morning, but officials were closely monitoring the approaching storm, according to Veronica Robins, with the county’s Emergency Management Department.
Robins said the condition of county roads and highways varied, with conditions worse in the northern parts of the county.
“Right now on our south side we’ve got spotty ice on the roads and on bridges and overpasses,” Robins said. “In the northern part of the county it’s pretty rough traveling. There’s a lot of ice on [Arkansas] 59. If we get what they’re saying tonight, things will be worse in the morning.”
Thursday calls for cloudy skies and a high near 43 in Northwest Arkansas. Sunny weather arrives Friday, and temperatures will be near 60 on Sunday and Monday, according to the weather service.
Interstate 49 was clear from the Missouri line to Fort Smith on Wednesday afternoon, according to the website idrivearkansas.com. U.S. 412 from Siloam Springs to Springdale also was clear.
Adam Moorman, a manager with AutoZone in Siloam Springs, said customers had bought de-icer and wiper blades the past few days.
Dennis Boling, owner of Jim’s Razorback Pizza in Gentry, said the store was busy delivering orders at noon Wednesday. The business was closed Tuesday and only open for a bit Monday, he said.
“The main roads are clear, and the side streets are slushy, but getting better,” he said.
Deliveries were to families who had school-age children at home or those who still couldn’t get out on the roads, he said.
Josh Binkley, general manager of Domino’s on Southwest 14th Street in Benton-ville, said it gets busier when winter weather hits and closes many businesses. Deliveries become more frequent than carryout orders, he said.
Binkley said his employees hadn’t been involved in any accidents in the icy conditions.
Main roads in Bentonville and Centerton looked pretty good Wednesday compared to Tuesday, he said.
Customers are also more appreciative with tips for making deliveries in icy conditions, Binkley said.
Binkley said he was proud of his employees for their work over the last three days.
“We are sort of like the Post Office,” he said. “We work in rain, sleet and snow, but to make sure people are fed.”
Area schools were either closed or had online learning days Wednesday.
The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville campus, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas Community College locations also were closed Wednesday.
Late Wednesday afternoon, NWACC announced its locations would again close today. Rogers, Springdale and Fayetteville schools will stay at home for online teaching today, for the fourth consecutive day.
Most Benton County roads were in fairly decent shape, but secondary dirt roads are still a bit rough, Melody Kwok, county communications director, said at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
“Road crews will hopefully be able to hit the dirt/secondary roads with road graders tomorrow,” she said. “That will depend on if we get any additional precipitation. We will have an overnight crew in for emergencies. Road crews will return in full force tomorrow morning to either treat the additional precipitation or to hit the dirt roads.”
Alex English at Northwest Arkansas National Airport in Highfill said about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday the runway was open and operating, but there still were weather-related cancellations or delays.
Arkansas Department of Transportation spokesperson Dave Parker confirmed mid-afternoon on Wednesday that one of the department’s plow trucks crashed into a ditch earlier in the day while working in Newton County where Arkansas 16 and 21 meet. He said the driver was not injured.
As for how the department’s workforce was holding up, Parker said, “Everyone’s tired. I can tell you that.
“But we’re fine numbers wise. … It’s a hard 12-hour shift. When you’re working 12 hours is one thing. When you’re working out in the cold and you’re operating that big equipment at night time and you gotta really focus, it mentally wears you down. You need that 12 hours of rest.”
But even after multiple days of winter weather, there likely won’t be a significant impact on any highway construction or maintenance projects, he said.
“That’s all contracted out,” Parker said. “I’m sure it’s slowed it down. But we build and they build into their contracts, into their bid, they build in a certain amount of winter weather days. Just like snow days, actually. They don’t anticipate contractors doing as much work come January, February. It sort of slows down, and then it picks back up pretty, pretty fierce in March. So I don’t think this is going to cause any problems.”
ELSEWHERE IN ARKANSAS
Freezing rain had started across southern and southeastern portions of Arkansas, as the final round of the ice storm ramped up, the weather service said in a tweet just before 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday.
“We expect this to continue and expand across much of the southern 2/3 of the state through tomorrow morning,” the tweet said.
An earlier briefing from the weather service said additional ice accumulation of a couple tenths of an inch or more was also possible in parts of western and eastern Arkansas.
Colby Pope, a meteorologist with the weather service, said the heavier freezing rain would be in central portions of the state, but some light winter precipitation might fall in some parts of north Arkansas or near Pine Bluff and Sheridan.
For the second consecutive day, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders closed state office buildings except for critical operations on Wednesday because of poor road conditions in many areas of the state.
POWER OUTAGES
Brandi Hinkle, a spokesperson for Entergy Arkansas, said Wednesday that the electric company was prepared for a third wave.
“We’ve had people moved around to places we think are more likely to be hit with severe weather,” she said.
She said the utility was watching the winter weather move through south Arkansas and expected it to come to central parts of the state.
As of 3:37 p.m., Entergy had 2,310 reported outages across the state.
Of those, 919 were reported around Hector in Pope County, but the utility reported that those outages had been resolved by 4:45 p.m. Wednesday.
Entergy crews had restored around 16,000 power interruptions since Monday, Hinkle said.
“That accounts for being able to restore power temporarily, and sometimes the electricity goes out again and we have to work to restore power another time,” Hinkle said.
The company said earlier Wednesday that the peak number of outages was the 7,600 seen Tuesday morning.
Beyond the extra weight from ice accumulation that can cause power lines to snap, the winter weather can cause power disruptions through “galloping,” an update from the utility said.
“Galloping occurs when rain freezes on the power lines, and then steady winds cause adjacent lines to move and sometimes contact one another,” the update said.
A group of other utilities, the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, reported 1,050 customers without power at 4:50 p.m. Wednesday.
Mike Jones can be reached by email at mjones@nwaonline.com . Tom Sissom can be reached by email at tsissom@nwaonline.com or on Twitter at @NWATom.
A Fayetteville Parks and Recreation Department worker uses a vehicle with a broom attachment Wednesday to clear ice from the street in front of the city administration building on Mountain Street in downtown Fayetteville. Crews spent the morning clearing ice and snow from sidewalks and streets after more wintry weather. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today’s photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Andy Shupe)