Utilities Report Success in Storm Recovery

An Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. member utility works as part of the clean up efforts after tornadoes tore through Arkansas on March 31.

State utilities were still scrambling at midweek to restore infrastructure and service to customers devastated by Friday’s killer tornadoes in central and northeast Arkansas.

But collaboration among Arkansas’ electric cooperatives had restored all outages caused by the supercells that hit west Little Rock, North Little Rock and Wynne on Friday.

“Crews at the electric cooperatives across Arkansas worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to restore service to members,” Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. spokesman Rob Roedel told Arkansas Business.

By noontime Tuesday, Roedel reported that all service had been restored and that all equipment had been repaired or replaced.

At the peak of the storms, the state’s 17 local electric distribution providers collectively had about 10,000 members without power. “First Electric of Jacksonville and Woodruff Electric of Forrest City experienced the worst of the outages, primarily in Cross and Lonoke counties,” Roedel said.

Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. of Little Rock, the generation and transmission provider for the distribution cooperatives, replaced 23 transmission structures that were damaged or destroyed by wind east of Wynne, where four people died.

Entergy Arkansas, the state’s largest electric utility, serving more than 700,000 customers, had cut its number of customers without power from a peak of 56,000 to about 5,500 by Tuesday afternoon, spokeswoman Brandi Hinkle said. The remaining outages are “very difficult cases” with damage in backyard or alleyway areas offering little access.

The investor-owned utility has used heavy equipment, including excavators, bulldozers and tracked vehicles in making repairs, and hundreds of crew members have been working 16-hour shifts, Hinkle said.

Friday’s storm damaged or destroyed about 1,500 Entergy utility poles in central Arkansas and Wynne, along with 435 transformers and 2,000 spans of wire.

“We have even had some of our linemen who have had to physically carry wire and power poles into those areas, and those power poles are very heavy, and they are not easy to manipulate,” she said. Because of severe damage, the usual two-hour job of erecting a power pole was taking 8 to 10 hours.

About 1,600 customers had homes or businesses damaged too badly for power to be restored to them, Entergy said.

North Little Rock Electric had a peak of 15,000 outages in its service territory, North Little Rock, Sherwood and other parts of Pulaski County. Spokesman Keith McCourt said Tuesday afternoon that the number without power was down to 2,159 customers of the municipal utility.

“On Friday we emerged from the safe room shortly after we knew the tornado missed our location,” McCourt said. After calling to make sure their families were safe, team members immediately started forming a game plan.

“Debris removal was essential to even travel to the affected locations,” McCourt said. “We started repairing what infrastructure was still standing, knowing a large amount would need to be completely rebuilt.” 

Sixty hours after the first meter went out, the utility had restored about 13,000 customers’ power. “After viewing all the destruction in person, I’m still amazed and proud of our coordinated results,” he said.

McCourt gave great credit to other entities that helped in the crisis, including Benton Utilities, the city of Bentonville, Conway Corp., Jonesboro City Water & Light, Paragould Light Water & Cable and Clarksville Connected Utilities. Along with those members of the Arkansas Municipal Power Association, contractors like ULCS, Musgrove Construction and Asplundh Tree Expert LLC pitched in, McCourt said. “We wouldn’t be where we are if not for the help.”

Summit Utilities dispatched more than 150 operations workers to more than 400 locations, turning off service to badly damaged homes, removing meters and clearing debris, according to Stephanie Sharp of the natural gas provider’s communications team.

Summit employees also did additional leak surveys “to ensure the safety of the system,” Sharp said.

“The response efforts will continue into this week as our team members assess the damage and conduct further surveys of the impacted areas,” she said. “We are continuing to work closely with emergency management officials and are mindful of the next round of severe weather predicted to hit the Natural State over the next 24-48 hours.”

The gas company asked the public to avoid heavily damaged areas to help keep traffic flowing so workers can reach areas needing help. 

Summit employees were also volunteering to aid response efforts, and the company was putting up a donation portal for team members, Sharp said.

“We’ve begun purchasing and collecting essential items to donate to community relief efforts,” she said.