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STUTTGART, Ark.—Ripped-down power lines littered streets Monday throughout Stuttgart as crews began the slow task of restoring power to the rice-plain city, as the rest of the state prepared for yet another expected storm front.

More than 170 utility workers from Entergy Arkansas began repairing lines, one spot held up only by a piece of lumber. Mike Davis, an Entergy employee, said it could take through the weekend to restore power to all the city after Saturday’s tornado.

Davis said 2,400 customers remained without power Monday, as trucks loaded down with tree limbs headed for the city dump. Though the skies remained clear, meteorologists with the National Weather Service warned another slow-moving storm could fall across western Arkansas by Tuesday afternoon.

“If the weather turns rough, it could delay us,” Davis said.

Rates charged to Entergy’s customers have an amount set aside to cover repairs and cleanup after natural disasters. However, Entergy spokesman David Lewis said the company already spent through the $14.49 million fund after a wave of snow storms, torrential rains, tornadoes and flooding spread through the state since Feb. 5.

That spending will continue, as Entergy saw 17 of its large, metal transmission towers fall in Phillips County during the storms.

“The cost of storm recovery is spread among all Entergy Arkansas customers,” Lewis said. “Just how the recovery of that expense is done is a matter yet to be determined.”

Gov. Mike Beebe, who toured Stuttgart by helicopter and State Police cruiser Monday, said people should be paying those costs to restore power to damaged communities.

“If you’ve ever seen 100 or 200 linemen come roaring into town to fix all your wires, you know, and get your electricity and power back on, you don’t mind paying those surcharges,” Beebe told reporters.

John Bethel, director of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, said Entergy would have to come before its panel before seeking any additional rate hike.

“They’ve not made such a request at this point,” Bethel said.

On his tour Monday, Beebe stopped by one ranch home that had its roof swept off by the E-F3 tornado, which had winds of 136 to 165 mph. Outside, Rickey White, 49, cut downed tree limbs into section with a chain saw.

The 10 people at a party at White’s home took cover in a hallway and a bathroom as the storm came through.

“I was out back when it started and when he come across the radio saying it was coming, I looked up and it was there,” White said. “I took off running to get the kids in the bathroom and the hallway and it hit.”

Monday, only a few exposed timber studs remained above the home’s white brick walls.

The storm’s ferocity and fickle nature stunned even John Robinson of the National Weather Service in North Little Rock. At one point, Robinson said he saw train cars tipped on their side after the storm. The cars’ wheels still sat on the railroad track.

“That’s the weirdest thing,” Robinson said. “I don’t know what to make of that.”

The storm injured nine people as it went through Lonoke and Arkansas counties. Forecasters said the tornado’s path was 21 miles long, beginning near Humnoke in Lonoke County and ending in Stuttgart.

The weather service said another tornado traveled 10.2 miles Saturday night from southeast of McCrory in Woodruff County to southeast of Fair Oaks in Cross County. Forecasters put the tornado’s strength at E-F1 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale of tornado severity, meaning it had winds of 86-110 mph.

Robinson put the blame for the fierce storms plaguing Arkansas on cooler water in the Pacific Ocean. The cool waters push a jet stream down into the state, causing severe storm fronts to stall out and hover.

“Depending on where the jet stream shifts, that’s usually where the worst weather is going to be and it’s been frequently over us this year, unfortunately,” Robinson said.