Storm leaves 4K without power
More than 4,000 Entergy customers were suddenly without power when a fast-moving storm system hit Garland County late Wednesday morning.
The storm system hit the county between 10-11 a.m. Wednesday and lasted well into the afternoon, bringing consecutive waves of rain that caused some minor street flooding. As of 11:45 a.m., the storms had caused about 4,600 outages throughout the county, most of which were caused by lightning, said Jim Garland, Entergy’s manager of region customer service.
The bulk of the outages were along Carpenter Dam Road, from its intersection at Malvern Avenue to Highway 290. The area initially sustained 950 outages, but the number increased to 4,300 when the Carpenter Dam substation was affected by lightning. The outage included the northwest corner of Golf Links Road and Malvern Avenue and Shady Grove Plaza, where all of the businesses were without power.
Around noon, Garland said a repairman was at the affected substation and expected power to be restored within the hour. Power was restored at around 12:52 p.m. to nearly 4,000 customers, with the remaining outages scattered throughout the county.
By 2:36 p.m., Garland said there were 36 different outages in Garland County, affecting about 320 customers. He had said earlier the remaining outages should be restored by 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Wednesday’s storm marked the second time in less than a week that thousands of Entergy customers saw sustained power outages in Garland County. The first was Sunday morning, when nearly 4,000 customers were without power following severe
weather that came in overnight.
According to David Batson, lakes manager for Entergy’s Hydro Operations office, the recording station at Carpenter Dam received 2.12 inches of rain within about 90 minutes as of 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.
By 2:42 p.m., Entergy was releasing 25,000 cubic feet per second of water out of Remmel Dam, which forms Lake Catherine, into the Ouachita River.
Batson said Entergy opened Remmel Dam in hopes of dropping the lakes slightly below normal range for the majority of the downpour. He said Entergy’s plan was to close the spillway gates at the dam just before the end of the downpour, to bring lake levels up to normal range.
As a result, Lake Hamilton was sitting at 399.24 feet above mean sea level and Lake Catherine was at 304.10 feet msl as of 2:42 p.m. Wednesday. Lake Hamilton is generally kept in a
1-foot band between 398.9 feet msl and 399.9 feet msl during the summer. Lake Catherine is usually kept in the middle of a
2-foot band at 304 feet msl. Batson said Entergy did not activate its Emergency Action Plan, which is triggered when the release from Remmel reaches 30,000 cfs, on Wednesday. The EAP was activated Sunday; the peak discharge out of Remmel Dam reached 44,785 cfs.
Batson said Big Mazarn Creek — a main tributary into Lake Hamilton that flooded Sunday — was not hit as hard as it was earlier in the week. He said Wednesday’s downpours affected the Hot Springs area more than areas west of it.