LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  - Entergy Arkansas is preparing for yet another round of wintry weather Sunday. The company has put employees on alert, cancelled vacations and begun identifying additional resources to call on should their help be needed.

Forecasts call for a possibility of thunderstorms with hail in Arkansas Saturday night followed by freezing rain and sleet Sunday and high winds Monday, mostly in northern Arkansas.

"It is very much looking like an ice storm is going to occur in the north," said John Robinson of the National Weather Service. "Make no mistake -- there is going to be a significant area of hazardous driving conditions in Arkansas with this weather system, and there may very well be enough ice to cause some power outages in northern Arkansas."

Entergy Arkansas is entering full storm mode, meaning employees are on alert to respond, a storm command center will begin operation over the weekend, and managers have initiated a series of conference calls on which they will discuss the threat and appropriate response, both of which become clearer as the storm nears, then arrives.

At this point, it's too early to predict how much damage the storm might cause, but if it does result in rain freezing on trees and power lines, outages could be significant.

Stay away from downed power lines. If you see a power line on the ground and suspect Entergy doesn't know about it already, call 1-800-9-OUTAGE to report dangerous situations, as well as outages.

Entergy Arkansas provides electricity to approximately 700,000 customers in 63 counties. Entergy Arkansas is a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation, an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy owns and operates power plants with approximately 30,000 megawatts of electric generating capacity, including more than 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power, making it one of the nation's leading nuclear generators. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.8 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Entergy has annual revenues of more than $11 billion and approximately 14,000 employees.

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