County powerless in face of ‘worst ice storm’

CARROLL COUNTY — An emergency disaster declaration was issued Thursday by President Barack Obama naming Carroll County and 47 other Arkansas counties federal disaster areas.The announcement came after an ice storm devastated most of northwest Arkansas leaving more than 200,000 homes and businesses without power.

The power outage is expected to continue into the weekend for many customers, electric officials say.

A Southwestern Electric Power Company spokesperson said its northwest Arkansas service area experienced significant outages as a result of winter weather that hit Monday — leaving an accumulation of up to one inch of ice over much of the area.

Company officials said the peak number of outages occurred Tuesday night, with nearly 59,000 customers without power. About a third of those were restored by Thursday.

“Additional resources in northwest Arkansas will reach 1,100 line and tree crew personnel,” the spokesperson said. “The current estimated time for 95 percent restoration is midnight Saturday. Falling trees are still a hazard to utility crews.”

Carroll Electric Cooperative crews and 91 contractor crews have been working hard to restore power to 56,000 of its customers who lost electrical service, including 47,000 customers who were still in the dark on Thursday.

According to James Sanders, vice president of executive services, the number of broken power poles is expected to exceed 1,000.

Although faced with a tremendous work load, he said 99 percent of the cooperative’s 160,000 poles did withstand “the worst ice storm this company has seen.”

He said restoration of three-phase feeders, the main arteries of the cooperative’s distribution system, was continuing.

“Presently, 49 feeders coming from 21 substations are still out of service, not including feeders partially out,” he reported Thursday, saying 14 of those were in the Carroll County communities of Grassy Knob, Holiday Island, Eureka Springs, Rudd, Green Forest and Cisco.

“The phones have been lit up non-stop and Carroll Electric consumers have been very understanding,” he added. “The goal is the same for consumers and the Cooperative — to get everyone’s power back on. This goal will be met, but it’s going to take time.”

Entergy Arkansas, which provides power in the cities of Berryville and Green Forest, said that as of noon Wednesday, crews were responding to 111,000 outages due to the ice storm.

Of those outages, more than 19,000 were in the Harrison area. Berryville had almost 3,000 customers without power. Separate figures were not released for Green Forest.

There were 2,415 linemen, field support personnel and tree trimmers responding to the outages, company officials said, including employees from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, as well as numerous contractors.

They say damage is extensive, every bit as devastating in some areas as the twin ice storms of December 2000 when its transmission network in north Arkansas suffered severe damage.

Restoration work is underway, they say, including scouting the damage so that work can be planned in an efficient manner — and so the company can develop estimates as to when power will be restored to all customers. However, preliminary estimates are that it will be as long as Tuesday, Feb. 3 before all customers are restored.

Entergy Arkansas customers are reminded to stay away from downed power lines. Outages should be reported by calling 1-800-9OUTAGE.

A relatively new- and recently upgraded — online service is “View Outages.” Anyone with Internet access can go to Entergy.com, click on “View Outages” and see where outages are occurring down to the street level.

Relief efforts

Relief came in many forms for people suddenly without heat and electricity.

County Judge Sam Barr said he opened the Berryville courthouse as a shelter Tuesday night. At least 25 people stayed there, with few luxuries, but at least they had access to restrooms and they could sleep in the chairs in the courtroom.

By Wednesday night, Barr was able to locate some cots, which improved the sleeping conditions considerably. Barr credited State Sen. Randy Laverty with locating the cots, and Justice of the Peace Tom Riddle for providing a truck to go pick up the cots in eastern Arkansas.

By Thursday morning, those still remaining at the courthouse were sent to other shelters.

Several churches in the area opened their doors as emergency shelters. Some refugees stayed at the Fire Department in Berryville, and even the hospital got involved.

St. John’s Hospital

When the electricity went off at the Berryville courthouse Tuesday night, Office of Emergency Management Coordinator Candy Bawcom tried to relocate the people who had been staying there. She called the hospital and asked if they could take some of the very elderly or infirm patients.

Kristy Noble, President of St. John’s Hospital–Berryville, said when the call came from Bawcom, the hospital was ready to help, even though the hospital was operating on generators.

Power went off Monday night at the hospital, and came back on Wednesday night. A truck from Kevin Barrows Excavation delivered extra diesel fuel to keep the generators running.

Despite the circumstances, the hospital performed its mission. “I’m so proud of our staff,” Noble said. “Many of them never left.”

Even though staff members worried about their own families, homes, and pets, they put the hospital’s needs first. “They all knew we had to be there to take care of the patients,” Noble said. “There were a lot of sacrifices.”

The hospital has a disaster plan in place. “We put that plan to the test twice a year, so we knew what we had to do,” Noble said. That disaster plan even prepared the kitchen for the task of preparing meals without full power.

The Emergency Room was very busy Wednesday, because the clinic did not have power, but by Thursday, the clinic was once again seeing patients.

Noble said while the hospital was on generator power, a baby was delivered by C-section, and mother and child were both doing well. “It’s part of our disaster plan to have a functional operating room,” Noble said.

Churches as shelters

Across the county, churches welcomed people in need, whether or not they were part of that congregation.

At Freeman Heights Baptist Church in Berryville, Deacon Vern Richardson said, “It just seemed like the thing to do.” The church fed 32 people Wednesday evening, and found places for them to sleep. About half of those people were members of the congregation.

Government response

Governor Mike Beebe on Wednesday implemented a Winter Weather State of Emergency to allow state agencies to “more easily” coordinate with the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

President Obama’s federal declaration makes available federal aid to help supplement state and local recovery efforts.

Eureka Springs

Because of the steep hills, ice and snow hit this city even harder than the rest of the county. Mayor Dani Joy said city workers were performing well under the trying circumstances, and residents of the city were displaying patience.

“This is the worst storm I’ve seen in the 21 years I’ve been here,” Joy said. The Eureka Springs courthouse was closed because there was no electricity. The police, Public Works, and Transit were on generators, and Transit was serving as a shelter.

“The transit building doesn’t hold very many people, so they’re mostly focusing on the elderly or people with very small children,” Joy said.

City workers have been on 12-hour shifts, and Joy said, “They’re doing everything they possibly can.” Further help may come from state and federal agencies.

The city council meeting scheduled for Monday, Jan. 26 was cancelled because of the incoming weather, and Joy said she may have to call a special meeting Friday to have a budget in place by the end of this month.

Joy urged the residents of the city to keep up their spirits. “Check your neighbors, and the elderly. Bundle up and take care of each other. And please be patient with the guys on the street–they’re doing everything they can.”

Green Forest

Mayor Richard Deweese said the city will have an area where residents can take debris from the storm, and he expects to have a curbside pickup of tree limbs set up quickly.

He also cautioned residents to watch for downed power lines as Entergy is energizing those lines again. “Everyone needs to be aware,” he said.

Deweese said most property damage in Green Forest is minimal, but the power lines took a serious hit. He said he drove around the city on Wednesday, stopping to visit with some residents.

Berryville

“We are making headway,” reported Mayor Tim McKinney on the city’s efforts to keep ahead of storm damage and ice packed roads.

“We are having trouble getting streets cleared because trees keep coming down,” he explained.

Those downed trees have created a huge mess, which McKinney has already addressed.

He said the city will schedule a limb and brush pickup program that will begin sometime next week utilizing chippers and other equipment.

He said they will be using three rented chippers, a purchased chipper, and a logging truck with a claw for pickup of big tree trunks — if they can be reached.

McKinney suggested residents begin dragging their limbs to the curb for the planned pickup. “Likely it will be next week before we get started,” he said.

City crews working the roadways were hampered by the solid sheet of ice that resisted efforts to break it up, he said. Spreading a mix of salt and crushed limestone helped some the first day, but continued ice accumulations were tough to keep up with.

He said city crews worked overtime, but not through the overnight hours because of the danger. “There were so many lines down, it was not safe to be out at night,” he explained.

Besides a loss of power citywide, McKinney said they also lost power at the wastewater treatment plant where a generator, which he described as “a $100,000 piece of equipment,” failed to operate.

“It was Murphy’s Law,” he quipped. “With Tyson (Foods) shut down, we called ADEQ, put chlorine in our effluent, and held all we could. Carroll Electric did a great job restoring power. They made it a priority and had three or four crews working on it.”

He said the plant was without power for 12 hours, described as a “critical time,” but because of cooperation from Tyson, which held back what it could, and Carroll Electric’s prompt response, they were able to stay in compliance.

McKinney said city police depended on a generator to keep them operating. With traffic accidents and crime at a minimum, he said police turned their attention to a “serve and protect mode,” checking on the elderly, and giving people rides to shelters.

“There is not so much criminal activity to work in weather like this,” he said. “That frees them up to help.”

He said city crews will continue their effort to clear the streets as more trees fall, “but we have to wait on the power company to move their lines in some situations,” he added.

County roads

Barr said workers from the Roads Department were putting in long hours, but they face some daunting challenges. He said in some cases, they saw limbs falling onto roads they had just cleared.

Barr said he is looking to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for additional crews to help clear fallen trees and limbs.

This entry was posted on 31. January 2009 at 15:56 and is filed under USA News, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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