Power restored to Piggott

Piggott MLWS distribution supervisor Bruce Swan (right) throws the switch Saturday afternoon that resumed the flow of electric into the city from the Southwest Power Administration, as Mayor Gerald Morris looks on. The city relied on the local power plant for over two and a half weeks while service was being restored.
(photo provided)

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Following the ice storm of Jan. 27-28, the city faced the possibility of weeks without power from the Southwest Power Administration, as transmission lines were down across the region. Early estimates were that the city would be without outside power for three to three-and-a-half weeks while poles were replaced and lines were run from Kennett.

Luckily, the city still maintained the power plant that for many years had been the only source of electricity. MLWS workers fired up the diesel-powered generators, and as the distribution system was repaired, residences and small businesses were brought online. The first week about 35 percent of the power was restored, and that climbed to near 70 percent by the end of the second week. When outside power was restored, around 90 percent of the city was utilizing the locally generated electricity.

"Once power was restored, we began to get the larger businesses and churches back on," Mayor Gerald Morris noted Monday. "I am so proud of the way our city handled this emergency. Hopefully we won't see anything this bad for a long time."

Morris also offered his thanks to past city leaders who insisted that Piggott retain the power plant, despite buying power from the SWPA.

"We ran the power plant harder than it had run in probably 40 years and didn't have any problems with the generators," the mayor added. "The only problems we had were out in our distribution grid, and we had one little issue with a cooling unit."

In looking back on the situation, Morris noted that communication was one of the most difficult issues of the ice storm response.

"We had no way of letting the people know what was going on. We need a better way to communicate what's happening to our residents," he surmised. "I felt that our department heads and employees handled this as well as could be expected," Morris noted of the city's response. "I can't think of anything else we could have done or anything we could have done better."

Morris indicated city workers will not be reading meters this month, as the current billing cycle will be estimated. He added that those bills should also be much lower than usual due to the outages.