Anyone who tried to call or do business with the city of El Dorado Thursday was likely unable to get through.
The city's Internet and phone services were down for all city administrative offices in an outage was reportedly caused by one of several weather-related accidents that have been reported around town for the past couple of days, including accidents involving city-owned vehicles.
Mayor Paul Choate said he arrived at City Hall at 7 a.m. Thursday and noticed there was no phone service or Internet access.
The mayor said he learned the problem had affected other city administrative offices and some businesses, including his own -- CMI Insurance -- in the area immediately surrounding City Hall.
Choate said he reached out to the city's information technology vendor and later learned that a vehicle had struck a utility pole and severed a fiber optic cable on Cleveland Avenue, a block east of City Hall.
Parts of Cleveland, along with many other city streets, were covered with ice and snow during a wintry mix that blanketed the area earlier this week amid an ongoing deep freeze that has gripped much of the nation.
"They took out a pole and they took out our services. They're working on it. I reported it before (8 a.m.)," Choate said.
He said the outage affected City Hall, the police, fire and public works departments and the El Dorado Water Utilities.
City Hall employees who were able to make it to work Thursday were "doing the best we can" to complete tasks manually and with cellphones, the mayor said.
"Hopefully, we'll have our service back before the end of the day. In the meantime, we're here and we'll be here (today)," he added.
Many city streets remained slick Thursday, making for treacherous driving conditions and prompting area schools, businesses and municipal offices -- some of whom were closed Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday -- to remain closed for the remainder of the week.
Temperatures dropped and winter precipitation moved in Monday and since then, sub-freezing and just-above-freezing temperatures have made it difficult for the snow and ice to melt, Choate said.
He said crews are working to provide city services while keeping a close eye on the weather to ensure the safety of city workers and residents.
City crews have been out sanding and salting slick, hazardous areas around town and keeping paths clear for entrances into South Arkansas Regional Hospital, local nursing homes and Lion Oil/Delek: El Dorado Refinery.
Two employees in the city's Street Department received non-life-threatening injuries when they slipped and fell on ice while out working this week.
Choate said both have filed workers' compensation claims.
Police and fire
The police and fire departments each said two of their emergency response vehicles received minor damage this week after slipping and sliding on ice-slicked roads.
Both departments said they have responded to multiple calls of traffic accidents over the past couple of days.
El Dorado fire Chief Chad Mosby said crews were responding to one such call Thursday morning on East Short Hillsboro when an ambulance lost traction and slid while trying to navigate an incline in the area.
"It was a situation where it was difficult to get up an incline and we were able to clear that out with our personnel," Mosby said.
He described another instance in which a rear tire on a fire truck spun out on icy road and forced the truck into a ditch.
Mosby and Choate said a wrecker service was called in to pull the truck back onto the road.
"We have worked a ton of wrecks," said Lt. Jarod Primm of the El Dorado Police Department.
Primm said two police cars were involved in accidents in slippery streets.
One of the cars, he said, slid into a utility pole, breaking the back window and damaging the rear quarter panel.
The front bumper was damaged on another police car in a similar incident, Choate said.
No injuries were reported in either of the traffic accidents that involved the city-owned vehicles.
Mosby, Primm and Choate urged to residents not to drive unless "it is absolutely necessary."
Referring the traffic accidents involving the ambulance and fire truck, Mosby said, "It kind of reinforces that we always try to encourage people to stay off the road when it's like this."
"Some people have to go to work and they have to get out and some people are out joy-riding and it ends up causing problems for other people on the road," the fire chief continued.
He noted that temperatures are expected to drop into the high teens tonight and Saturday night and he advised residents to take precautions if they have to drive.
"There are places on the road that are still really wet and you may see some black ice in those areas," Mosby said.
"There are a lot of side streets that have not been exposed to sunlight and it may take a couple of days to thaw out, so be careful," he said.
Mosby suggested that motorists stick to the city's main thoroughfares and avoid side streets, if possible, until the snow and ice melt across the city.
Primm offered similar advice, adding, "If you have to go anywhere, be very careful and take it slow."
City services
Choate asked local residents to be patient as city crews work to keep streets safe and get city services back up and running full throttle.
Addressing some of the complaints he has heard, Choate said crews prioritized streets and intersections that were deemed "the most hazardous" in the city, spreading multiple pallets of salt and truckloads of sand.
He said the city has also used its own skid steer, front-loading tractors and contracted out the service to keep city streets clear of snow and ice.
"We're trying to keep up with it the best way we can. We started laying sand and buying salt last week," Choate said, noting that the last major winter-weather event that brought several inches of snow and ice to El Dorado occurred four years ago.
Choate said streets are still too hazardous for city garbage trucks.
Sanitation crews expected to resume the weekly garbage collection service on Tuesday but pick-ups have been suspended until Monday.
"We were hoping against hope to get out and get garbage collections started earlier this week but our trucks can't navigate that stuff right now," the mayor said. "We're looking, right now, at starting our normal garbage pickup on Monday."
Water utilities
The El Dorado Water Utilities plans to reopen its office today, said EWU manager John Peppers.
Peppers said staff had planned to open the office at 10 a.m. Thursday but the city-office-wide phone and Internet outage quashed those plans.
"With the internet down this morning, we couldn't do a whole lot. We couldn't make online payments or anything like that," said Peppers. "So, we're going to try to open(this) morning."
If the EWU office opens today, Peppers said an announcement will be made if the normal operating hours of 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. are modified.
Peppers urged residents to take continue to be mindful of their water pipes during the bitter cold weather and take precautions to keep pipes from freezing and bursting.
Over the past two days, he said the EWU has received several requests to shut off service from customers whose water pipes have burst.
Measures that local residents can take to prevent water pipes from freezing include:
Keep garage doors closed as much as possible.
Open all interior doors to allow for better heat circulation. Also, open bathroom and kitchen cabinet doors at night.
Keep interior temperatures at a minimum of 55 degrees Fahrenheit and be consistent.
Should water pipes freeze, heat them slowly and:
Wrap an electric heating pad around pipes to get them flowing.
Heat pipes with a hair dryer.
Steadily increase heat in the house.