Roads slick, power out for many

In region, toppled trees add to hazards

Snow-packed roads forced traffic to a crawl throughout Northwest Arkansas on Friday morning and ice-laden branches snapped power lines, cutting electricity to thousands of residents in the River Valley.

Highway and law-enforcement agencies throughout Northwest Arkansas said late Friday morning that all roads were covered with snow and ice.

Jeff Wheeler, district engineer for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department’s 9th District, said road crews were struggling to keep up with the snow that had fallen uninterrupted throughout Thursday night and Friday morning.

“Our crews are out, trying to push off what snow and ice they can from the roads, but it’s hard for us to keep up right now,” Wheeler said. “We are making a little headway.”

The 9th District covers the western portion of the state’s northern border, including Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Madison, Marion, Newton and Searcy counties. Wheeler said district employees were working 12-hour shifts, with about 100 employees per shift and about 65 vehicles working to clear the roads.

“We watch for fatigue,” Wheeler said. “It just depends on how long this lasts. Right now, we’re not seeing any fatigue issues.”

Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Highway Department, said most of the transportation problems reported to the department’s headquarters were related to downed power lines and fallen trees.

“There are some points where power lines cross state highways, where the lines are low enough that tractor trailers can’t clear them,” Straessle said.

Straessle said department crews in many rural areas of Northwest Arkansas were busy clearing trees from roadways.

Traffic on most of the region’s major highways, including Interstate 540 and Interstate 40, was slowbut moving throughout the morning.

“We haven’t had anything catastrophic that’s shutting down the interstate,” Straessle said. “In central Arkansas, our fear was that folks would go to work, then try to leave when things started getting worse. We encouraged people from the get-go to just stay home so we could treat the roads. You can’t treat the roads when you’ve got traffic backed up from an accident.”

Straessle said the department was preparing for several more days of wintry weather.

“We anticipate this to be a weekend event as well,” Straessle said. “It’s a thawand-refreeze cycle. As the sun goes down, we’re going to have a refreeze event. The road crews are all working 24 hours a day right now - it’s just a nonstop process.”

Representatives from Arkansas Highway Patrol Troops L, H, I and J, which collectively cover the northwest quadrant of the state, all reported heavy snow and ice in their respective jurisdictions. A spokesman with Troop H, which covers Crawford, Franklin, Logan and Sebastian counties, said downed power lines had left thousands of homes without electricity throughout the area.

Greg Standridge, chief of the Crow Mountain Fire Department and a member of the Pope County Emergency Medical Services team, said the Fire Department had received about five calls from stranded motorists. Standridge said one man near Dover had died when a pine tree fell on camper in which the man was apparently sleeping.RIVER VALLEY WOES

Oklahoma Gas and Electric spokesman Christina Dukeman said the Fort Smith area was bearing the brunt of power failures.

She said most of the disruption in electrical service was because of ice forming on power lines, knocking them down, and tree branches falling on the lines.

Fort Smith’s director of streets and traffic control Greg Riley said street crews and sanitation department workers were out Friday removing fallen branches that had blocked streets. He said the only Fort Smith streets that were closed because of the snow and ice were those with steep hills that sanding trucks could not reach.

According to the OG&E website, more than 2,900 Fort Smith customers were without power as of noon Friday. Other areas in the dark were 1,612 customers in Charleston, 1,276 in Lavaca and about 1,000 in the Branch and Caulksville communities east of Fort Smith.

OG&E also reported that more than 2,000 customers in Dyer in Crawford County were without power Friday afternoon.

Other power companies also were reporting some electric-service disruptions. Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative reported that more than 3,500 customers served by the Waldron substation were without power, as were more than 1,300 in Hackett and 415 in Hartford, both in south Sebastian County.

Southwestern Electric Power Co. reported more than 10,000 Arkansas customers without power, with 4,032 in Sebastian County, 2,986 in Polk County, 2,121 in Scott County and 936 in Logan County.

Also in Logan County, Arkansas Valley reported that power was out to 959 customers in Booneville and 860 in Subiaco.

About 80 percent of residences in Greenwood and surrounding area, including Huntington, Hartford and Mansfield, were without power Friday, SebastianCounty Office of Emergency Management Deputy Director Aquib Kenoly said.

Kenoly said he was advising residents who had lost electricity to stay in their homes as long as they could before venturing out to warming stations because of the danger of driving on the slick streets.

Warming stations were set up at the Salvation Army office at 301 N. Sixth St. in Fort Smith and at the Fellowship Baptist Church at 111 College Road in Wicherville between Greenwood and Huntington, Kenoly said.

He said efforts were being made Friday to set up a warming station in Greenwood.

Scott County Judge James Forbes reported ice and snow hampering travel on most county roads. He also said toppled trees and downed power lines had cut power to areas throughout the county.

He said residents began losing electricity about 6 p.m. Thursday. As of Friday morning, about half of Waldron was in the dark along with such areas south of Waldron as Y City, Parks and Nella, he said.

Ice-laden trees had fallen on some houses and damaged some roofs, Forbes said, but there were no injuries reported.

He said few people had to abandon their homes because of the power loss, Forbes said. A warming station was set up in Parks.

Forbes said crews from Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative, Southwestern Electric Power Co. and Entergy Corp. were in the county Friday morning working to restore power.

Forbes said county crews, along with firefighters and sheriff’s deputies, were using chain saws to clear the roads.

In Crawford County, one county crew worked all night Thursday to clear county roads of downed trees, and three crews were working Friday, County Judge John Hall said.

The county also had two snowplows with sand spreaders on the back and 11 graders working on the roads, Hall said. But he said the snow was falling so fast that the plowing was having little effect. He said no county roads were impassable and closed.

Traffic was light Friday because of the weather.

Fort Smith police spokesman Sgt. Daniel Grubbs said reports of traffic accidents related to the weather were few. A sheriff ’s dispatcher in Logan County said he received no calls of accidentsfrom 6:30 a.m. to noon Friday.

“Everybody knew it was coming and were prepared,” Grubbs said. “And everything was closed in advance.”

Kenoly said U.S. 71 in Huntington in south Sebastian County was closed Friday afternoon where six tractor-trailers were stopped because they were unable to climb a steep hill at the town’s south end.

The Arkansas State Police in Fort Smith reported tractor-trailers temporarily blocking Interstate 40 near the Oklahoma state line and Interstate 540 at Mountainburg before noon Friday. U.S. 71 near Greenwood was closed for about 90 minutes because of downed power lines on the highway.

Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport’s website showed American Airlines flights to and from Dallas-Fort Worth were canceled Friday afternoon. Most other flights: to Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Orlando, Fla., Las Vegas, Newark, N.J., and Charlotte, N.C., were scheduled to leave on time.

The Fort Smith Regional Airport website showed American Airline flights to Dallas-Fort Worth were canceled Friday but Delta Airline flights to Atlanta were scheduled to depart.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/07/2013

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