Freezing Rain, Sleet Impacts County

RISON - Toppled trees and power outages were a common problem across Cleveland County Tuesday and early Wednesday morning as the region was hit with its first significant ice storm in several years. County Judge Jimmy Cummings reported that road crews worked throughout Tuesday night and Wednesday morning clearing trees that had fallen across county roads blocking traffic. He said most of the fallen trees had been cleared to the point that traffic could pass, but road crews would be following up during the day on Wednesday to push them away from the roads. Cummings said they had reports of three fallen trees in the Rye area, one across Mt. Elba Road south of the Saline River, another across Cross Road north of Kingsland and some in the northern part of the county. Based on the observations from the road department responses, Cummings said there seemed to be two strips within that county that were hit the hardest. He said one strip started just south of Rison to the liquor store on Hwy. 79 and went eastward, while another seemed to be from the Kingsland area over to the Pansy area. With the forecast calling for another round of freezing rain Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Cummings said road crews would remain on stand-by to address any problems. Cleveland County was placed under its first ice storm warning in several years on Monday as three separate systems were forecast to make their way across southern Arkansas. While Cleveland County was initially outside the original ice storm warning area issued by the (continued from page 1) he National Weather Service (NWS) on Monday morning, a revised warning issued later that day included more Cleveland and some other counties in southern Arkansas. The NWS was predicting ice accumulation of between .25 to .50 inches for the county with Tuesday's storm. That amount of ice, according to the NWS, could lead to widespread power outages. Muc...