PEA RIDGE — Storms hit Pea Ridge Thursday and Saturday night leaving half the city in the dark as customers of Southwestern Electric Power Company were without power most of the night. Just before 7 a.m. Friday morning, the last SWEPCO lines were restored and by 9 a.m. Sunday, power was restored from the Saturday outage.
On Tuesday, firefighters were clearing limbs away from the homes of elderly residents as partof the Firewise program designed to lessen fire hazards.
“We can’t go on people’s property without their permission,”Mayor Jackie Crabtree said. The firefighters place the brush at the curb, the employees from the Street Department can pick up the brush to take to the burn pile on Greer Street.
Elderly residents who are unable to move downed limbs or brush next to their residence may call the Fire Department (451-1111) for assistance.
There is still a burn ban, Crabtree said, so none of the brush is being burned at this time.
“The folks at Fire and Street departments - the guys got out and done a great job,” Crabtree said of the Saturday night storm which left trees across roadways and on some houses.
“There was not any kind of warning ahead” for this storm, he added.
“All of our emergency personnel did a great job,” the mayor concluded.
Linemen for SWEPCO worked throughout the night both Thursday night and Saturday night tracing the lines seeking the source of the outage and reconnecting switches.
“All this lightning makes it dangerous,” Richard King, SWEPCO lineman, said.
News, Pages 1 on 08/10/2012