Entergy Arkansas Inc. said Thursday it expected most customers who lost power as the result of Wednesday's severe weather to have power restored by late that evening, but it could be late today before any remaining outages are resolved.
Around 1,981 customers lost power when the storms came through unexpectedly Wednesday at around 4:45 p.m. Around 1,069 were still without power Thursday morning, said J. Paul Brewster, Entergy's customer service manager.
"We continue to restore services with local resources and will have additional outside resources arriving around noon today," Brewster said Thursday morning in an email.
"We anticipate having most customers restored by late this evening (Thursday) with any remaining customers restored by late tomorrow (Friday)," he said.
"We have multiple broken poles, damaged transformers and over 30 spans of wire down. The majority of the damages were sustained around the south end of the lake," Brewster said.
"This was certainly an unexpected event but we will continue to work until all customers have their services restored," he said.
"We had some areas that were inaccessible to vehicles due to the number of trees down and power lines," 70 West Fire Department Chief Autumn Carlisle told The Sentinel-Record Thursday.
"The damage spanned from approximately the 1200 block to the 2000 block (of Marion Anderson Road) and ranged from minor debris to trees down across roadways and on residences," she said.
There was only one injury reported when several trees fell on a residence (on Bon Air Point) "trapping the homeowner inside," Carlisle said. "Our crews arrived and were able to get the patient out quickly and they were transported with minor injury."
The 70 West firefighters and first responders, Garland County sheriff's deputies and "a couple of rangers from Arkansas State Parks," worked in the area "making contact with residents and assessing the damages," she said.
The Garland County Road Department arrived and "is still working in the area clearing debris and reopening some of the roadways," Carlisle said shortly before 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
