Two power failures rock Little Rock

Overloaded circuit, squirrels blamed for outages on frigid night

The temperature didn’t change when David Goble stepped from the frigid weather outside into the Arkansas Repertory Theatre building, and that was the first sign things were awry.

The seven-hour power failure in downtown Little Rock overnight Tuesday knocked out The Rep’s boiler, and thus its heating system. It was just one of several problems related to the power failure that lingered throughout the downtown area Wednesday.

After hours at work, Goble, The Rep’s facilities manager, said his feet hadn’t thawed from the upper-teens temperatures he’d experienced outside Wednesday morning.

“My toes are just constantly numb,” he said.

The power failure was caused by a electrical demand overload, according to Entergy Arkansas. It shut down heating systems and resulted in some frozen water pipes overnight, causing some to burst early Wednesday.

The outside temperature was 14 degrees at 3 a.m., when power was restored. Temperatures reached a high of 39 degrees just before 2 p.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.

A pipe burst above the lobby in the Cromwell building at 101 S. Spring St., and water knocked out an underground electric switch that powers the Cromwell and Pulaski County government buildings. None of the buildings had electricity until Wednesday afternoon.

Downtown Pulaski County offices were closed, but county treasurer employees worked from home and from five Arkansas Revenue offices across the cou nty, according to Treasurer Debra Buckner.

A separate power failure in west Little Rock led to a burst pipe at The Point and Brodie Creek apartment complex.

The separate electrical failures had different causes, Entergy Arkansas spokesman Kerri Case said. The downtown circuit was overloaded because of the cold night’s electricity demand, which caused a breaker to throw and shut off power. In west Little Rock, squirrels knocked a recloser box open for an extended period of time.

About 500 individual accounts were affected by the downtown power failure, Case said, and another 600 were affected by the power failure in west Little Rock.

It was business as usual Wednesday for many businesses and offices downtown, with people filing in and out of restaurants along Main Street at lunchtime.

The 21-story Union Plaza building on Capitol Avenue was a bit chilly for a while, but after the power was restored it operated normally with all offices open, according to Kirk Ray, a building security guard.

Rhonda Hetland left for lunchtime errands before a sprinkler head broke on the second floor and flooded the lobby of the Lafayette building on South Louisiana Street. Hetland managed to avoid the noontime chaos and said her fourth-floor job as a licensing specialist at the Arkansas State Board of Collection Agencies was operating as it would any other day.

Doug Coffman, a spokesman for the Little Rock Fire Department, said a window had been left open overnight on the building’s second floor, which led to a frozen pipe that ruptured while thawing.

Work wasn’t quite as usual at The Rep, where actors rehearsing for The Call left for their housing at Peachtree Apartments on Sixth and Rock streets because the theater was too cold. They rehearsed at home.

The Rep’s boiler is controlled by an electronic switch, said Zach Rhodes, the box office manager. When the electricity went off, no signals were sent to the boiler, so it was cold in the building Wednesday morning. Rhodes turned on two space heaters and worked in his office for a time before deciding to go home in the afternoon.

Editors, page designers and a reporter worked by flashlight and wireless routers Tuesday night at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Capitol Avenue to finish the newspaper. Some newspaper deliveries were delayed Wednesday morning, and the newspaper’s website, arkansasonline.com, was knocked out.

The website remained out of commission Wednesday evening, with Arkansas Online staff members posting articles on the newspaper’s Facebook page. Some newsroom desk phones also were not functioning Wednesday evening.

The power failure also shut off electricity Tuesday night at the KATV building on Main Street. A backup generator allowed the station to produce a full nighttime broadcast, according to news anchor Chris May.

The downtown power failure began Tuesday about 8:40 p.m., Case said, and power was restored by 3 a.m. Wednesday.

About a dozen Entergy workers, bundled in brown coveralls, worked at two affected substations, while another two dozen worked remotely throughout the night to restore power, Case said. Workers on-site traveled between the Gaines substation and the Garland substation, both downtown, trying to identify the problem, Case said. The Gaines substation feeds the Garland substation, which powers the area that blacked out Tuesday night.

Eventually, workers discovered a thrown underground breaker that had cut off electricity, Case said. They decided to power the area with electricity from other substations for the time being.

Because temperatures were well below 25 degrees, workers could restore power only gradually so as not to risk creating conductivity problems, she said. That took until about 3 a.m.

Shortly after power was restored, the pipe in the Cromwell building began to thaw and ruptured, said Jim Rice, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, the building’s fourth-floor tenant.

He received a phone call about 4 a.m. informing him that a pipe had busted in the center of the building, above the lobby, and water had flooded the floor and some offices. He headed into the office to survey the damage firsthand.

“It was a serious breach,” he said.

A restoration crew vacuumed up the water, and Rice said he expects damage to be minimal, although he hadn’t ruled out the need to replace the carpet.

In the Chenal Ridge neighborhood in west Little Rock, squirrels burrowed in the substation, opened the recloser box and got caught in the gears, Case said. That caused a power failure from about midnight Tuesday to noon Wednesday.