Downtown Little Rock outage largely fixed; parts of North Little Rock still lack power

Entergy's online outage map showed almost no outages in Downtown Little Rock as of 4:48 p.m. Saturday, less than three hours after 1,652 customers lost power.

Meanwhile, North Little Rock Energy's outage map showed that 2,000 customers remained without power as of Saturday afternoon.

4:40 p.m.: Bird blamed for Downtown Little Rock power outage that altered new museum's plans

Saturday's power outage in Downtown Little Rock, which affected the newly opened Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, is bird-related, according to an Entergy spokesperson.

Matt Ramsey said a bird had gotten into an insulator, which is "part of one of the main breaker stations ... which makes sure that the wires don't touch. If you touch one of those, it will trip the breaker, and what happened is that bird ended up flying into that, and that's what tripped the breaker.

"This type of thing happens a lot, to be honest with you," Ramsey added. "It's out of our control."

Ramsey said at about 4:10 p.m. Saturday that company officials hope power will be restored by 8 p.m.

The power outage has prompted the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts to postpone its Member Day reception, which had been scheduled for tonight. In an social media post, the museum said that anyone with a ticket to tonight's reception can attend Sunday's reception, which is scheduled for noon until 5 p.m.

2:40 p.m.: Over 2,000 people without power in North Little Rock after storms

North Little Rock Electric's outage map indicated that over 2,000 customers remained without power, just after 1 p.m.

"We have isolated the outage & restored power to as many customers as possible," the company tweeted around 12:40 p.m., "Due to conditions, terrain, & the amount of damage, customers currently without power will experience an extended outage while we repair the infrastructure."

In addition to the North Little Rock outages, Entergy's online outage map reported that nearly 2,500 of its customers were without power across Central Arkansas just before 2:15 p.m.

The outage, first reported at 2:06 p.m., affected 1,656 customers in downtown Little Rock, primarily located around MacArthur Park.

"Our crews are getting in there right now on site," said Entergy spokesperson Matt Ramsey. "They're assessing the damage right now."

Ramsey said it was not certain yet if the outage was connected to the storms that passed through Saturday morning.

The estimated restoration time was 5:30 p.m.

12:04 p.m.: 2,600 people without power in North Little Rock after storms

Over 2000 people are without power in North Little Rock following Saturday morning's storms, an outage map showed.

North Little Rock is experiencing two large power outages that are affecting roughly 2,600 customers, according to the North Little Rock Electric's map just before noon.

North Little Rock Electric said that two electric poles were broken and spans of wire were down due to fallen trees in a tweet around 11:15 a.m. A lineman had been dispatched, an earlier tweet said.

"Unfortunately, some customers will experience an extended outage while we repair the damaged infrastructure," the electric company said in the tweet.

The outages had been ongoing for around two hours as of noon on Saturday.

This story will be updated.

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