Entergy Arkansas Inc. officials said Tuesday morning that a primary conductor snapped due to cold temperatures and 422 Garland County residents were without power for about two hours.
"A three-phase conductor runs from the intersection of highways 290 and 7 south to the Craft Manufacturing and Tooling plant. A single-phase line runs beyond the plant and meanders out into the country," said Greg Asbell, Entergy's regional manager for customer service.
"A primary conductor is on the ground and that is what caused the outage. We don't see any trees or anything on the line, so we believe the cold weather caused the wire to snap," he said.
Only about 150 customers were initially without service, but when a breaker was opened at the intersection of highways 290 and 7 south so that workers could repair the break, a total of 422 customers were left without power as temperatures hovered around 26 degrees.
At about 10 a.m., crews were at the scene and a serviceman was standing by at the junction to close the breaker as soon as the repairs were made. The repair was complete and power restored by 10:45 a.m., Asbell said.
The sleet and snow that fell across Garland County on Monday also sent a few people to local emergency rooms due to falls. Mandy Golleher, director of volunteer services at National Park Medical Center, said fewer than five people had been seen in the Emergency Department as a result of winter weather accidents.
"We hope that means people are being smart about staying home unless they absolutely have to get out in the weather, and responsible while sledding and playing out in the snow," she said.
"In fact, our ER visit numbers were slightly lower Monday, so the weather seems to be deterring some people who might typically come to the emergency room for nonemergent reasons," she said.
Jeff Slatton, media relations specialist for CHI St. Vincent Hot Springs, said no specific numbers were available, but the emergency department "had been busy, but they are staying on top of it."
Jason Gartner, general manager for LifeNet, said ambulances had to respond to only two motor vehicle accidents Monday.
"Usually we would do about three motor vehicle accidents, 30 medical calls and about nine trauma calls on a normal day in February. We were up just slightly on Monday, with just two motor vehicle accidents, 37 medical calls and six trauma calls," he said.
While many businesses close or send employees home early during winter weather events, LifeNet brings in extra staff, Gartner said.
"For every weather event, we evaluate the situation and determine the need for extra staffing for the ambulances and dispatch. We also do a fair number of long-distance transfers, typically to Little Rock, but those were put on hold Monday and are still on hold, which is a little bit of an issue because it starts backing up the emergency rooms a little bit," he said.
Gartner said all the ambulances have been equipped with studded tires and stocked with ice melt and kitty litter, in case they need extra traction.
"We also get aggressive about refueling the ambulances because the power may go off and you can't get fuel," he said.
Local on 02/25/2015