Recent cold weather strains utilities

Falling temperatures also causing sharp rise in requests for welfare checks

HOT SPRINGS — Bitter conditions over the past several days have led to power failures, broken water mains and other utility problems, and brought about increased concern for the welfare of others in the unseasonably cold weather.

As the temperatures have plunged, the Hot Springs Police Department has seen a significant rise in the number of requests for welfare checks, many of them out of concern for a person in the cold weather.

Police have responded to 30 requests to check on people over the past three days, more than it received in the preceding two weeks combined, according to Hot Springs officer Joey Williams.

“Thirty in 72 hours — that’s a lot, considering what we normally do,” he said, noting that officers conducted seven or eight checks on Tuesday alone.

“Around the holidays, they increase, anyway; people are looking for relatives or whatever else,” Williams said. But, he said, “they greatly increase during the cold weather.”

Williams said while not all of the requests in the past three days have dealt with cold-weather concerns, a quick glance over the call list showed many that were: homeless man on corner, hunched over; “I haven’t heard from my relative, it’s cold could you go check on them;” and “white male, white shirt, bluejeans, lying on concrete outside of building.”

Welfare checks include a member of the public asking the department to look in on someone else, such as a co-worker, a neighbor or a random stranger on the street, or a family member asking the department to check on a relative.

Power failures brought about by the cold weather have been scattered around Hot Springs and the Garland County area, according to Jim Garland, Entergy Arkansas Inc.’s regional customer service manager.

“At the peak we had a few hundred customers without power because of outages in the Surrey Road and Thornton Ferry Road areas. These outages were caused by downed power lines due to the extreme cold temperatures and winds in the area,” Garland said Tuesday.

Also, a piece of electrical equipment failed on Brady Mountain Road causing a failure in the area until the equipment could be replaced.

“Entergy appreciates our customers’ patience during these extreme conditions,” Garland said.

Hot Springs Municipal Utilities has had a number of calls from residents asking for help with shutting off water valves or sprinkler meters because of a water leak from freezing pipes, according to Terry Payne, the city’s public information director.

“Sometimes they don’t know where to shut off their water, or how to do it. These calls usually require two trips: one to turn off the water, and another to turn it back on. Utilities doesn’t charge for these trips when they’re related to extreme weather,” she said Tuesday.

Other calls have been from residents reporting they have no water because pipes are “frozen solid,” Payne said. Once frozen pipes thaw, calls to Municipal Utilities usually increase, as well, because water leaks sometimes result.

To prevent pipes from freezing, residents can insulate them, install covers for exposed exterior faucets, slow drip faucets that have a greater chance of freezing, and leave under-sink cabinets open so warm air can reach the pipes.

A water-main break in the Deer Valley area, about 100 yards north of the Marion Anderson Road/Pittman Road intersection, caused temporarily low water pressure Tuesday morning.

While answering service calls, city and county employees also had to deal with harsh working conditions in the subfreezing weather.

“Our departments are continuing to work but are taking steps to dress appropriately for the conditions,” County Judge Rick Davis said Tuesday.

“They are also taking warming breaks. Hopefully this will not last too long and normal conditions will return,” Davis said.

While “it’s a challenge” working in cold weather gear that can make it harder to move around, Williams said Hot Springs police “put a lot of extra care and effort into making sure our homeless people are not out in 5-degree weather.”

The cold weather “definitely hit at an inopportune time,” over a holiday weekend, Williams said, but “that’s part of what the job is.”