Electric Companies On Alert As Winter Weather Approaches

The state’s two largest electric utilities are urging customers to be prepared for a pending winter storm expected to blanket many parts of Arkansas with ice.

Entergy Arkansas, the state’s largest electric utility, says it is mobilizing for a significant ice storm that could impact all or parts of its service territory in the state starting Thursday (Dec. 5). Entergy serves 700,000 customers in 63 Arkansas counties.

“With a major storm that affects a large area of our territory, power restoration for all customers could take between five to seven days to complete, with the majority of customers being back in service much sooner than that,” said Brady Aldy, transmission and distribution operations director for Entergy Arkansas.

He said that as many as 8,000 workers are being mobilized regionally to help with repairs in anticipation of the weather.

The Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas said it is also on high alert.

“The cooperatives urge the public to be prepared for what could be a significant weather event and may result in outages lasting several days,” said ECA spokesman Rob Roedel.

Roedel said the electric utility, which has 17 cooperatives across Arkansas, have secured assistance agreements with contractor line and right-of-way crews and mutual aide arrangements with electric cooperatives both within Arkansas and surrounding states to aid with potential outages and repairs.