Residents, businesses recover from widespread outage
Published 9:15 am Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Power has been restored to Entergy customers and it was business as usual for the restaurants and stores affected by a two-day power outage that followed a storm system passing through Warren County early Sunday morning.
High winds, with gusts over 30 mph, accompanying the storm blew trees and limbs on power lines knocking out power to 4,612 Entergy customers in Vicksburg and Warren County.
More than 2,100 of those outages were in an area south of I-20 along East Clay Street, North and South Frontage Road, U.S. 80 and Mississippi 27 served by Entergy’s Vicksburg East substation off Porter’s Chapel Road, which went out after a tree fell on a transmission line, knocking it into a ravine. Most customers in that area did not receive power until 5 p.m. Monday.
A second outage occurred about midnight Tuesday, when four transformers blew, knocking out power to 109 people in the area around Indiana Avenue.
The Sunday outages forced businesses along East Clay Street, most businesses along North and South Frontage Road, U.S. 80, Mississippi 27 and U.S. 80 to close for lack of power.
“We were out for the whole day on Sunday,” said Jerry Chambers, Outlets of Vicksburg general manager. “We won’t know how much it affected us until later in the week, when the stores start running their numbers.”
He said the mall averages from 90 to 100 people on Sundays, “So we had a pretty good loss. We counted 234 vehicles in the parking lot Saturday, so we had a pretty good day.”
He said power was restored by Monday and all stores were open.
Rebecca Liggett, manger at Carter’s at the Outlets of Vicksburg estimated being closed Sunday cost the store about $2,000 in sales.
She said she and her employees learned about the outage when they came to work and saw the blacked-out store.
“We did not have a very high plan for Sunday, so it didn’t hurt us as much as I’m sure it hurt some of the other stores,” said Dress Barn manager Connie Linzy. “We only ‘planned to do less than $400; it’s never been that low. We were able to make it up the very next day.”
She learned about the outage from a manager at the Bass Outlet, who attends church with her.
“She left church to open at 10 a.m., and we were going to open at noon. She called me and told me the power was out.
Rowdy Nosser, owner of Rowdy’s restaurant on Mississippi 27, and the Taco Casas on North Frontage Road by Corner Market and on Pemberton Boulevard, said the power outage closed Rowdy’s and the Taco Casa on North Frontage.
“I thought under the circumstances of what happened, the many storms and other things that happened, they (Entergy) did a magnificent job getting things back on and running. I have no complaints about it,” Nosser said. “They did all they could do. It couldn’t be helped.”