7:30 a.m. Sunday update:
Entergy Arkansas Inc. says it still estimates it will have the majority of its outages in Garland County resolved by noon Sunday.
As of 7 a.m. Sunday, there are still about 900 customers without power in Hot Springs and Garland County area.
About 90 customers are still without of power in Hot Springs, and the remainder of the large outage cases in the unincorporated areas are along Highway 298 west of Hot Springs Village, toward Fannie. There are also a few scattered outages along Highway 7 north of Highway 5 toward Hot Springs Village, Entergy said.
Original article
Entergy Arkansas Inc. brought an additional 100 outside line workers to Garland County to restore power after severe thunderstorms late Friday afternoon, but the restoration effort was hampered by additional storm damage on Saturday and a substation outage near Hot Springs Village.
As of 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Entergy still had about 2,800 customers out of power in the Garland County area, said Jim Garland, Entergy's regional customer service manager.
The number included some new outages that occurred Saturday due to additional storm damage and the outage at the Mountain Valley Substation near Hot Springs Village, Garland said, which impacted about 1,400 customers.
"We are currently making repairs to the damaged substation equipment at Mountain Valley and will start re-energizing the circuits in that area around 6 p.m.," Garland said.
Garland said Saturday morning that the severe thunderstorms that moved through the Hot Springs and western Garland County area Friday afternoon left around 7,000 customers without service at the storm's peak.
By 11 p.m. Friday, local lineman had restored power to almost 3,500 customers, and by 7 a.m. Saturday, the number of outages had been reduced to about 2,400.
Garland said the restoration work on Saturday was "slowed somewhat" by additional outages caused by storms in the area and rough terrain in some of the outage areas.
"Restoration work will continue throughout the evening. Based on the additional outages and current restoration progress we now estimate most of the customers in Hot Springs and Garland County will now have power restored by noon Sunday. We appreciate our customers continued patience during the repair process," he said.
According to Hot Springs police Officer 1st Class Joey Williams, Friday's storm downed at least 19 trees and 14 power lines inside the city limits.
On Saturday morning, Garland said lightning and strong winds associated with the storms broke six poles and downed several segments of power lines.
Most of the largest outages were in the western part of Hot Springs and along Highway 270 west toward Royal, Garland said.
"An additional 100 outside line workers will be working in Hot Springs and western Garland County today," he said. The original estimate called for having power restored to most all customers by 5 p.m. Saturday."
Shangri-La Resort on Lake Ouachita posted Saturday that its restaurant would be open by 2 p.m. after being damaged by a small wind storm on Friday.
"Thank God no injuries occurred," read one of the posts, and another thanked community members for helping out.
"In times of need this community always steps forward. A big Thank you to our wonderful neighbors at Mountain Harbor Resort. Thank you to all the ones that came down to help us. We are truly blessed with many friends," the post stated.
The National Weather Service posted on its website Saturday a ridge of high pressure that was building toward Arkansas on Friday promised heat and not much rain, but before the ridge became dominant, the atmosphere destabilized in northern and western sections of the state during the afternoon.
"Hit and miss" thunderstorms popped up quickly, mainly north and west of Little Rock, producing damaging straight-line winds of 60-plus mph that downed trees a few miles south-southeast of Washita in Montgomery County, at Caddo Gap in Montgomery County, Tulip in Dallas County, and just south of Mountain Pine.
The storm movement was 10 mph or less, producing "prolonged downpours" in places, the Weather Service said.
Through 7 p.m. Friday, Blakely Mountain Dam picked up 2.55 inches of rain, with 2.2 inches near Jessieville and 1.59 inches at Hot Springs.
Storm damage reports to the Weather Service included a tree down near Lake Ouachita State Park on the east side of Lake Ouachita; on the road on the mountain going into the state park; trees and power lines down between Mountain Pine and Highway 270 on Treasure Isle Road; and trees down on west side of Lake Ouachita near Little Fir Landing.
Local on 06/10/2018