BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — Thousands of residents in Benton County experienced power outages on Jan. 14, following snowfall and low temperatures.
According to Carroll Electric Cooperative Corporation, 2,510 customers were without power around 9 p.m. on Sunday.
Around 10:15 p.m., Cory Smith, Carroll Electric's corporate affairs vice president, said most of the services that were impacted by the outage have been restored, leaving around only 800 customers without power.
Smith said the mass outage was due to a "tripped off" distribution feeder at the Beaver substation, though its cause is unknown.
"A distribution feeder is a main circuit electric line that feeds thousands of customers from a single power substation," Smith said. "Most substations have anywhere from 3 to 8 distribution feeders."
As a temporary solution, they plan to "backfeed" the electric line from another substation to restore customers' power. Line crews are on the scene now investigating, Smith said.
"Backfeeding is when we open the circuit from its original source (substation) and close the circuit so it's fed from another power substation," Smith said.
Smith did not have an estimated time for when the power will be fully restored.
"Our crews will be working to restore power in the safest and shortest time possible," Smith said.
Monday, Jan. 15
At 5 a.m. Monday, Benton County power outages continued and the number of affected Carroll Electric customers went up to 1,156. Other counties in 5COUNTRY did not report any power outages.
By 6 a.m. power was restored in Benton County according to poweroutage.us.
For other electric companies and counties, track power outages in Arkansas here.
Stay with 5NEWS for updates.
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