Local power outages down to around 1,000

Nearly 1,000 customers across the county are still without power after the winter storm that passed through the area Tuesday evening and into Wednesday morning.

At its peak, the storm left roughly 5,700 Entergy Arkansas and Mississippi County Electric Co-op customers in the dark; but by Wednesday evening power had been restored in most areas throughout the city.

Mississippi County Electric Co-Op had completely restored power to its 1,700 customers hit by the outage by 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to director Brad Harrison.

Entergy Arkansas, however, is still working to restore power to nearly 1,000 customers in the county.

"We've still got about 610 people out in Blytheville proper, and about 930 total in the county including those in Blytheville," said Russell Harris of Entergy. "We hope to have a majority of the lights back on by the end of the day, but we can't guarantee anything."

Harris said most of the outages were scattered out across the company's service area, but a few of the sub-stations were experiencing issues. To help with this Entergy be contracting some help with the repairs.

Blytheville Police Capt. Ricky Jefferson said Blytheville police responded to three accidents Wednesday, two of which resulted in minor injuries. Jefferson blamed all three wrecks on the the poor road conditions created by the storm.

cpinkard@blythevillecourier.com