Crews work overnight to restore power to 3K

Crews worked overnight to restore power in Garland County after heavy thunderstorms moved through the area Wednesday evening.

Lightning and strong winds associated with a line of heavy thunderstorms that moved through the Garland County area at around 5 p.m. Wednesday left about 3,000 Entergy Arkansas Inc. customers without power, a utility spokesman said Thursday.

Local crews and outside contractors worked through the night to restore power. By 6 a.m. Thursday, power had been restored to almost all customers, said Jim Garland, Entergy Arkansas Inc.'s regional customer service manager.

"Entergy appreciates our customers' patience and safety during the restoration effort," he said.

Garland said the largest outage was east of Hot Springs along Highway 270, in the Akers Road area.

"Almost 2,000 customers were impacted by this outage caused when winds blew a tree onto the power lines. Power was restored in the Highway 270/Akers Road area about 6:45 p.m.," Garland said.

Garland said the outages peaked at around 3,000 customers by 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The remaining outage cases were scattered around the area.

Another significant outage occurred at about 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Lakeland Drive area, Garland said. A tree was blown onto power lines causing an outage to about 350 customers and blocked traffic along Lakeland. Tree crews removed the downed tree and power was restored about 9 p.m. to customers in the Lakeland area, Garland said.

Flash flooding was also a problem in the county Wednesday night. The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for the Garland County area until 7:15 p.m. Wednesday.

At 4:51 p.m., Doppler radar indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rain from Crystal Springs and Pearcy to Hot Springs, according to the National Weather Service.

Radar estimated 1 to 2 inches of rain in places, according to the warning. "Given additional heavy rain, flash flooding is likely to occur. While rain will taper off during the warning, it will take some time for any high water to run off," it stated.