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Dozens in county remain without power |
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Tuesday, 16 September 2008 |
It’s deja vu for Saline County.
Hurricane Ike’s arrival this weekend has left the county to relive some of the same problems that occurred when Hurricane Gustav blew through the area a couple of weeks ago.
Arkansas didn’t receive as much rainfall with Ike, but high winds downed trees and knocked out power to a number of county residents.
About 40 Benton Utilities customers remain without power, Mayor Rick Holland said this morning. Most of the outages are in the Wellington Point subdivision, he said, and the rest are scattered throughout town.
“A lot of customers had services ripped off their houses,” Holland said.
Since Saturday, city of Benton crews “have been working around the clock and we should have everything back on by 8 p.m. today,” Holland said.
Jim Garland, customer service representative for Entergy Arkansas, said a little more than 200 people in Saline County remain without power. The majority of those are in the Bryant area, he said, noting there are still outages in Haskell and Bauxite.
“Our goal is to have these areas back on by Tuesday evening,” Garland said. “A lot of the area is inaccessible and it will take longer to get to and there are harder working conditions.”
Still, it’s an improvement from Sunday when more than 1,600 Entergy customers in Saline County were without electricity, Garland said.
Holland said he and other officials knew there would be problems Saturday when they learned the area would receive 40 mph wind gusts.
“Crews cut trees off lines and restrung them,” the mayor said. “As the night progressed, we got more calls than we could handle. Wellington had major damage to a power line and we have to do everything by hand.”
He added that “street crews came out Saturday night and cut trees out of roads and pushed them to the sides. We’re coming back today and throughout the week to pick them up and take them to the burn site on Airlane Drive.”
Holland emphasized that the burn site is available to people who need to discard of brush and trees. “They can bring cut up trees and we’ll burn it for them,” he said.
First Electric Cooperative reports 1,700 outages in Saline, Grant and southeast Pulaski counties.
Repair crews will continue to make progress today, but not all power will be restored by tonight, officials said.
First Electric is asking people to treat all downed power lines and poles as if they are energized and to notify the electric company or local law enforcement officials as soon as possible. First Electric customers may report power outages by calling 1-888-827-3322.
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