Keeping the lights on across south Arkansas takes planning, investment and infrastructure built to stand up to changing conditions. That’s the goal behind a recent transmission reliability project from Dumas to Reed.
The $10 million project replaced aging wooden transmission poles with modern steel structures to strengthen a key line serving south Arkansas and north Louisiana. This will ensure the region has the capacity to support growing communities, expanding industry and future economic development opportunities.
“The Dumas to Reed rebuild was actually driven by a regulatory study that showed that we needed to increase the capacity of the line to maintain reliability of the local and bulk electric systems in south Arkansas and north Louisiana,” Entergy Arkansas Grid Senior Manager Austin Thompson said.
In total, crews rebuilt 13.9 miles of transmission lines, more than 200,000 feet of conductor and replaced 78 structures along the route. While the original infrastructure had served customers for decades, Thompson said it was time for a stronger solution.
“A transmission line that was constructed 30, 40, 50 years ago and beyond, the typical construction at that time was done with wood poles,” Thompson said. “Those wood poles have degraded over time, but we have also seen increased weather patterns. We have seen higher winds. The steel poles that we are installing are a lot stronger. They are designed to withstand much higher wind speeds.”
Steel poles can handle wind speeds of up to 125 miles per hour, significantly improving resilience during severe weather events. Entergy Arkansas Transmission Lines Supervisor, Gary Tidball, said that strength directly translates to fewer outages and improved service.
“Our customers demand reliability and they deserve it,” Tidball said. “We try to deliver on what we need to do to harden the grid and keep outages down.”
Such projects are part of Entergy Arkansas’s Next Generation Arkansas plan designed to position the state for long-term prosperity. Reliability is one of the plan’s four pillars and focuses on making the power grid stronger with an initial goal of reducing power outages by at least 30% over the coming years.
Beyond improving weather resilience, the project also prepares the grid for continued growth across the region. As south Arkansas and north Louisiana attract new residents, industrial investment and business expansion, the transmission system must be able to deliver more power safely and efficiently. Entergy Arkansas Transmission Lines Manager Dillen Bufford said infrastructure upgrades like this one are essential to meeting higher demand while maintaining system stability.
“We are experiencing a lot of load growth right now,” Bufford said. “Upgrading our infrastructure, our ratings that our lines can handle, to help handle increasing load demand—it’s a huge win for our customers,” Bufford said.
Through investments like the Dumas to Reed Transmission Reliability Project, Entergy Arkansas is modernizing its system to build the foundation for economic growth, strengthen communities and ensure customers have the reliable power they expect—today and for the next generation.
