PARIS, Arkansas — After three days of sweltering heat, power restoration is nearly complete for the residents of Paris, Arkansas.
Up and down neighborhoods most severely hit by Sunday's powerful storm, line crews can be seen in the air and on the ground replacing power poles.
Crews from all over the state have called Paris home for the past few days battling record-breaking heat and replacing dozens of power poles to get electricity back to residents. Paris Mayor Daniel Rogers also told 5NEWS that upon final assessment It’s gonna end with over 60 poles broken.
Wednesday was met with optimism from Rogers. "We're really close we think to getting to the next phase... I'll be happy once we have everyone in our city with electricity."
Rogers said about 90% of the community woke up to power Wednesday morning and he hopes to have power fully restored by Wednesday night. "We don't want anyone going to bed without power, it's been long enough," said Rogers.
Despite the heat and more poles needing to be replaced than initially thought, crews say residents have been patient in their efforts to restore power.
"We try to work as hard as we can, as fast as we can, but like I said, it is nice," said Jon Hays, a lineman with Jonesboro's City Water and Light. "We had somebody stop by earlier and they wrote us a little note and brought us muffins and water... we really appreciate it."
With the extensive damage, some trees pulled lines down so hard that they ripped utility boxes from the sides of homes. In cases like this, Rogers and Hays agreed it might take a little longer for those residents to get power back and only a handful of individuals had this happen.
"We can restore the main line, you know, the actual feed, but most of the time it's kind of a bad deal because they'll have to get an electrician and get all that fixed before we can restore their power," said Hays.
However, these one-off situations are few and far between. Residents of Paris should have their power back on and fully restored before the end of Wednesday.
More good news for residents, Rogers says no one will need to continue to conserve water. Water levels are back to normal, and the water treatment facility is already planning to install backup power generators in the event another severe storm were to knock out power widespread.
Rogers says the major wind event was unlike anything seen in Paris in decades and that power will be restored to every section of the city this evening. He also says the city will still have some secondary connections that will have to be done tomorrow and some additional construction work done to areas that already have power restored.
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