HELENA-WEST HELENA, Ark. — A crisis was averted Thursday in Helena-West Helena, where the ice storm shut down one of the city’s water pumping stations that supplies water to the local hospital, a nursing home and hundreds of residents.
Pumps are back on and power has also been restored to nearly 1,000 customers there left in the cold.
“We have a pump station because we have to pump it, literally, uphill into a water tower, and then gravity takes over and it feeds hundreds and hundreds of residents, but especially our hospital and our nursing home,” Mayor Kevin Smith said, describing the problem with the water system.
Smith said it was a “race against the clock” to get power back to the pumps and he credits Entergy with getting the job done quickly.
Power coming back on across Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi after ice storm
By noon Entergy crews had restored power to many customers across the north part of the city and into Phillips County.
Joe St. Columbia, a member of the Helena-West Helena city council, was without power for about five hours and says his house was downright cold.
“I got up and the lights went out shortly after I got up,” he said. “I do have a fireplace and immediately I got my wood logs started burning and at least got some heat from the fireplace.”
But it wasn’t too bad for Frank Clancy, who just got a generator from his mother in law.
“With that meter shut off, the generator kicked in. It probably wasn’t ten seconds and the lights came back on, the heat was on,” he said. “I’m great.”
Smith says he is concerned that limbs may start falling, and there could be more outages. He’s urging people to stay indoors and limit travel as roads could re-freeze.
