FEMA to assess damages in state

Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives will be visiting several counties in Northwest Arkansas by the end of the week or early next week, officials with the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management Agency said on Wednesday.

“FEMA, state and local teams will be going into the areas that were hit hard by winter storms and assessing the damages,” Tommy Jackson, spokesman for the Arkansas agency said. He was unable to confirm which counties in Northwest Arkansas the agents will be visiting.

FEMA officials will put together data showing the possible financial impact from snow and ice that started accumulating in the region on Thursday, Jackson said. He said the information will be given to Gov. Mike Beebe.

Beebe will then decide whether the damage amounts are high enough to ask for financial assistance from FEMA, Jackson said.

An example of damages that officials will look at are the costs that power cooperatives have incurred from power failures along with the cost of cities removing downed trees and limbs, Jackson said. He said FEMA will also assess possible

damage to roads or bridges from ice or time road crews have spent clearing roads.

Greenwood, south of Fort Smith, was hit by ice and snow. Ice brought down tree limbs that littered the city along with damaged power lines, said Greenwood Mayor Del Gabbard.

“We still have a small section that is out of power,” Gabbard said. “They are guaranteed that by Friday everything will be on again.”

Southwest Electric Power Company had 14,000 customers without power by midnight Thursday. Power was restored to all customers Tuesday, Peter Main, spokesman for the company said. Sebastian, Logan, Scott and Polk counties also experienced power failures.

Greg Davis, spokesman for Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative, said there were 250 people still without power in Arkansas mid-day on Wednesday. He said at the peak of the storm Friday, 20,000 were without power. He said most of the customers still without power are located in Scott and Logan counties.

“We run a great amount of line through forested areas,” Davis said. “The biggest challenge that we are going to have right now is that some of these are in very rural areas and getting access is the biggest challenge.”

Some of the lines run through the Ozark and Ouachita mountain ranges, Davis said. There are no roads to get to some of the lines, he said.

“We have had to do a lot of clearing in those areas just to get our trucks to them,” Davis said. “In some cases they actually had to rebuild large parts of the system and getting poles to some of those areas has been very challenging.”

Davis said between 400 to 500 employees have been in the field working on the failures.

Most roads in Greenwood were fairly clear on Wednesday, Gabbard said. He said schools resumed classes Wednesday.

Crews were still fighting snow-packed roads in other parts of Northwest Arkansas on Wednesday. Most main roads were reported as being clear but some side roads weren’t defrosting as quickly.

Dwayne Allen, director of public works for Eureka Springs, said that some side roads in the region were still impassable to certain vehicles on Wednesday.

“Some of our areas are steep and don’t get any sun,” Allen said. “Today we are getting back on some of the side roads.”

Some of those roads include Mountain and Magnetic Drives, Allen said. He said main roads in the city are clear.

Chris DeWitt, transportation director for the Bentonville School District, started driving roads at 9 a. m. on Wednesday so that he could report to district administration about road conditions by the end of the day.

“Every main road is pretty well clear,” DeWitt said. “It is all the little side roads that people drove on and packed down the snow to ice. We also have a concern about roads refreezing tonight. If it freezes tonight we could have black ice all over.”

The district could decide to run limited bus routes if only a small percentage of roads are a concern, DeWitt said. This would mean that buses would be unable to travel down the routes to get students but another location would be available for parents to drive their students to for bus pickup.

The district, like most in the region, have been out of school since Thursday. The district’s semester ends Dec. 20.

Mary Ley, communication director for the district, said high school teachers have adjusted final examination tests and schedules because of the snow days.

Parents and students received an email Tuesday evening informing them that teachers will “reduce the amount of new material to be addressed and included on fall semester exams.”