9:41 a.m. Saturday update:
Entergy Arkansas Inc. said Saturday that it will be Monday night before power is restored to most all of its customers in Garland County.
Saturday, Entergy will have around 200 additional line workers and 130 additional tree trimmers join the restoration efforts of local crews, according to Jim Garland, Entergy's manager of region customer service.
As of 8 a.m. Saturday, about 7,100 Garland County customers are still without power due to the line of storms, heavy winds and lightning that moved through the area late Thursday, Garland said.
The majority of the larger outages are still in the western and southwestern parts of the county, and outages along Park Avenue and Highway 7 north.
Today, crews will be working in the general areas of Brady Mountain, Treasure Isle, Old Dallas Road, Amity Road, Park Avenue, Fox Pass, Highway 298 and Gulpha Gorge.
Crews will also be working the scattered outages throughout the county, Garland said.
"All damage assessment should be completed by late today," Garland said in an email Saturday. "The initial estimate for power restoration to most all customers in the Garland County area is Monday by 10 p.m."
Original article:
Nearly 24 hours after a severe thunderstorm swept through Garland County, about 9,300 Entergy Arkansas Inc. customers were still without power Friday evening.
"Our local crews have restored power to about 11,000 customers since the storm late Thursday evening. Crews have been able to re-energize the main feeder circuits in the downtown area. However, there are still scattered outages in the downtown business district," Jim Garland, Entergy's manager of region customer service, said in an email Friday evening.
The majority of the larger outages were still in the western and southwestern parts of the county. There was also still a significant number of outages along Park Avenue and Highway 7 north, Garland said.
"We have approximately 200 additional line workers and 130 tree trimmers who have started arriving this afternoon. These crews are joining the restoration efforts of our local crews as they arrive. Local damage assessment teams have been evaluating damage throughout the day, so that we can provide a more accurate estimate as to when power will be restored to all customers," he said, adding that all the damage assessment should be completed by late today.
"We remind the public that safety is our No. 1 priority. Please stay away from downed power lines. To report a downed power line, please call 800-9OUTAGE," he said.
Thursday's storm left thousands of local residents and businesses without power, causing headaches for linesmen and business owners who rely on electricity to stay afloat.
Magic Springs and Crystal Falls sales and marketing director Kathy Marchese said the park lost power at 5:36 p.m., but everyone was "safe and sound" and no major damage was found.
Mountain Harbor Resort & Spa owner and CEO Bill Barnes said that while his blood pressure has significantly risen since the storm hit, the damage could have been worse and volunteers have turned out in big numbers to help in any way they could.
"We were extremely fortunate, especially compared with what happened to us in March with the tornado and the extensive damage on some of the other properties on the lake. We had light to moderate damage everywhere," he said.
Approximately 30 trees fell in the Joplin and Mount Ida area during Thursday's storm, including half a dozen that fell onto structures, knocking the power out to the entire resort.
"Thanks to some really great work by David Oliver and other Entergy people we were able to get power back on by midnight on the main run into the lodge and marina office. We have standby generators for those facilities so we were up and running anyway, but it's nice to have the power back," Barnes said. "They've been out working on getting power restored to the other areas."
Barnes said the entire resort covers 900 acres including the surrounding neighborhoods. Power has been restored to the resort's marina basins, lodging areas and Harbor East, a condominium neighborhood to the east of the resort. Entergy Arkansas Inc. was still working to restore power to Harbor South, a subdivision to the south of the resort, on Friday.
Barnes is also the chief of the Joplin Volunteer Fire Department, which he formed 37 years ago, and said their protocol during a "high wind situation with obvious damage" is to gather all volunteers at the fire department before dispersing to their separate locations to begin cleanup.
"At the fire department, we have chain saws, we respond to trees down, we respond to welfare calls, people trapped in homes -- we do about anything that is required of us to help our community, so between a combination of Joplin volunteers and Mountain Harbor staff, by about 10 p.m. (Thursday) we had every road in Harbor -- not two lanes on all of them -- but every road in Harbor opened up where they were passable," he said.
"We rigged standby generators; today we have a standby generator running one of the waste treatment plants so that it can continue to process waste. We deal with a lot of that stuff, and medical calls and fire calls but fortunately we didn't have to do any of that last night," Barnes added.
A thorough assessment was done after the storm passed and Barnes said no one was hurt.
"A storm like this has a negative and a positive. We went through a tornado in March and I'm beginning to wonder what we've done to make God mad at us," Barnes said, adding that a storm of this nature creates a lot of problems with the debris and damage left over, but it also "brings the whole village together."
"One of the most wonderful things about our little village here at Harbor is consistent, I think, with the spirit of our state. We're still a small, rural, residential state and when something like this happens -- I mean, we had 20 people at the fire department station, Joplin volunteers, people that live and work in the area, and they have all done it by choice. Everybody gathered and said 'what do you want us to do?' and that's the wonderful part of it, is the spirit.
"The storm made a horrible mess for our county, and there are only 10,000 people in the county (Montgomery). All over the county you could hear volunteers clearing roads and checking on elderly people, and just the radio traffic to the Sheriff's office: 'put barricades here, this bridge is washed out, we've got this tree cleared off this road.' That's the wonderful rural spirit that a storm brings out," Barnes said.
Thursday night's scheduled screening of the Elvis Presley classic, "Blue Hawaii," in the free 2016 Movies At The Market series was rescheduled for Thursday night, July 28, because of the severe weather.
"We know a lot of families had been looking forward to seeing Elvis in 'Blue Hawaii,'" Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said Friday. "We'll add it on to the end of the summer schedule and continue Movies At The Market for an extra week."
"Top Gun," the Tom Cruise hit movie, will be shown as scheduled Thursday night, July 21, Arrison said. "Blue Hawaii" is sponsored by Visit Hot Springs and "Top Gun" is sponsored by Relyance Bank.
Editor Mark Gregory contributed to this article.
Local on 07/16/2016