Storms knock out power to 2,400

Severe thunderstorms packing strong winds and lightning left around 2,400 Entergy Arkansas Inc. customers without power Sunday morning.

While the bulk of the outages were expected to be repaired by Sunday afternoon, Jim Garland, Entergy’s manager of region customer service, said it could be until midnight Sunday before all the outages were resolved.

The single-largest outage was in the Park Avenue area, Garland said, and affected about

1,100 customers.

“The outage in this area was caused by limbs blown onto the power lines,” he said. Most of the outages in the Park Avenue area were restored by around

2:30 p.m.

The other outages were scattered around Hot Springs and the Garland County area.

“Another large outage was along Treasure Isle Road north of Albert Pike. This outage was caused when a tree blew onto the power line. About 900 customers were out of power in this area. Repairs along Treasure Isle are expected to be complete by

4 p.m.,” Garland said.

The remainder of the numerous smaller outages in the county were expected to be restored by midnight Sunday, he said.

The line of severe thunderstorms moved through the Hot Springs and Garland County area at around 11:15 a.m. Sunday. At 10:11 a.m. Sunday, the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Garland, Montgomery, Pike, Polk, Scott and Yell counties. The Weather Service warning said a line of severe thunderstorms extended from near Cardiff to 6 miles north of Opal to near Mena Intermountain Airport, moving southeast at 45 mph. The storm was carrying 70 mph wind gusts and nickel-size hail.