Storm takes toll on infrastructure

Trees that toppled onto parts of Entergy Arkansas Inc.’s distribution system late Sunday and early Monday left more than 6,000 of its customers in Garland County without power, requiring an extensive restoration effort that concluded Thursday.

The utility said the powerful line of storms that swept across the state caused the most outages statewide since the 2000 ice storms. Sunday’s storm didn’t affect large transmission lines and substations in the county but played havoc with the distribution system, the utility said.

Hot Springs Memorial Field reported wind speeds from the northwest peaked Sunday at 44 mph.

“We were able to capture 18 poles, 41 spans of primary conductor and 12 crossarms,” J. Paul Brewster, customer service manager for Entergy Arkansas, said of the damage assessment that began Sunday night.

Some facilities were unaffected by the storm but had to be taken out of service to repair other areas. More than 1,300 customers lost service Tuesday in the 3000 and 4000 block of Malvern Avenue while repairs were made to other areas of the distribution system.

“This outage was necessary to safely make repairs to adjoining infrastructure,”

Brewster said.

He said rather than waiting on crews to complete damage assessments, the utility used predictive models based on the number of affected customers and power lines to inform its response.

It included dispatching more than 150 contract personnel who install, repair and maintain overhead utility lines to

Garland County.

“We began making outside resource requests a few days prior to the storm based on the weather forecast, staging resources in various areas on Saturday (April 11) to ensure a more timely arrival/response,” Brewster said. “In a storm scenario every situation is different depending upon the type and extent of damages, terrain, vegetation impacts, etc. We obviously want to restore services as soon as possible but always keep safety as a number one priority.

“Our production expectations are high but again stress safety over speed.”

Brewster said the coronavirus pandemic distinguished the storm response from previous restoration efforts, requiring line workers to practice social distancing while restoring power to more than 100,000 customers statewide.

“The safety of our employees, contractors and customers is far and above our top priority,” he said. “We did implement practices to ensure all those mentioned practiced virus related safe work practices.”