Entergy braces for outages as Tropical Storm Arthur nears Mississippi

Entergy put crews on standby and warned customers across Mississippi to prepare for possible outages as Tropical Storm Arthur’s remnants moved in with heavy rain, flooding and wind damage. For Cleveland County households, that meant finishing storm plans before roads, power lines or rising water made the work harder.

The National Weather Service office in Jackson said additional heavy rain would continue through the day and night, with as much as 4 to 8 inches more possible and locally higher amounts. The agency warned of widespread flash flooding, and said brief, weak tornadoes and isolated damaging wind gusts were also possible as the storm drifted into the state. In the Mississippi Delta, that combination can quickly bring down limbs, wash over low-lying roads and cut off crews trying to reach damaged equipment.

Entergy Mississippi said Tuesday that it was preparing for severe weather related to Tropical Storm Arthur over the next 24 hours. The utility said crews were ready to respond to weather-related outages caused by heavy rainfall, thunderstorms, flooding, downed trees and saturated soil. It also pointed customers to its outage map, free app, phone and text alerts, and urged residents to check power status and report downed power lines as soon as they see them.

The company’s safety message was blunt: stay away from downed lines, flooded areas, standing water and debris because energized lines may not be visible. Entergy also told customers to build medical needs into their storm plans, a critical reminder for families that rely on refrigerated medicine or electric medical devices. For small businesses in Cleveland, Cleveland County and nearby Bolivar County, the same warning carried another layer of risk: an outage can mean lost inventory, stalled registers and hours of downtime if power drops without notice.

Entergy said it serves more than 3 million electricity customers across Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, so even a storm centered in Mississippi can ripple across a large operating area. The utility’s hurricane-season materials said the season began June 1 and cited a forecast calling for 13 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.

The company also said it regularly inspects critical infrastructure, including underground electrical vaults serving downtown areas, and that some systems are built to keep operating even if submerged. But with weather changing fast and floodwater rising, service can still fail suddenly if equipment becomes unsafe. That made last month’s severe storms in Lamar County a sobering backdrop: 17 people were injured, at least 275 homes and 50 apartment units were damaged, and 30 roads were closed because of debris.