A.J. Gary of the Arkansas Division of Emergency Management speaks on how state officials are dealing with Beryl's impact to the state on July 9. More than 12,500 power outages were reported.
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00:00As this storm continues, what are you most concerned about with Beryl?
00:05So as it moved through, of course, we had a lot of tornado warnings overnight and early this
00:12morning. A few trees down along with some power lines. We have about 17,000 right now without
00:20power. Utility companies are working hard to get those restored. But fortunately, we have not had
00:28a lot of structural damage that's been reported to us so far. So we're doing good at that at that
00:34point. And as these storms move out, what about the heat? Because that's going to continue to
00:40build. Are Arkansas residents at risk with this summer's high temperatures? I know we have some
00:46power outage issues right now. Yeah, so we'll continue to monitor that. I mean, this is
00:52Arkansas, so we have pretty warm weather most of the time, especially through the summer.
00:59So but we'll keep an eye on that and make sure that we can open some cooling centers if they
01:05are needed. And are there any safety tips that you would like to give residents during the summer
01:12of more potential severe weather? Absolutely. The main thing that we try to encourage people
01:19is to really be weather aware, to watch their local weather channels, keep up with the weather
01:25that's occurring in their area, make sure that they have some good notification apps on their
01:30phones so that they can hear those warnings when they come out, and just really be aware of that.
01:37Also, with the extensive rainfall, I really want to encourage people to watch the roadways. If they
01:43see water on the roads, don't try to go across it. We did have a couple of water rescues overnight
01:49where people were stranded in their vehicles. So we really encourage people to just keep an eye on that.