NATCHEZ — Natchezians could start seeing fewer power poles and sagging power lines, if Mayor Butch Brown gets his way.

“It’s like a cobweb that hangs over the city,” Brown said.

Brown mentioned at the July 10 aldermen meeting his concerns about too many poles in the city, leaning or broken poles and sagging power lines. He has since talked to Entergy representatives and said he believes the issue is on its way to being resolved.

Customer Service Manager Tim Runnels said it is important to remember that not all of the leaning poles with sagging lines in the city are Entergy poles.

“Cable and telephone (lines) are below us a lot of times, so these 18-wheelers are actually hitting those lines, even though people think they’re (Entergy) lines,” Runnels said.

That was not the case, Runnels said, with the 18-wheeler that hit a power pole at the corner of Broadway and Madison streets Monday morning, leaving some residents and employees in the northern part of downtown without power for several hours.

Entergy repaired the broken pole hit in the accident, but the other pole was left leaning after the power lines pulled it over slightly. Runnels said Entergy regularly looks for leaning or damaged poles and checks them out on a case-by-case basis.

“Not every leaning pole is an issue, and some poles cannot be removed because people would lose service,” Runnels said.

Runnels said Entergy removed approximately 20 poles last year on the bluff, and he said the poles on the bypass that were left up after decorative light poles were placed on the road will be coming down in the next couple of weeks.

Brown said he talked to Steve Lee, Entergy Mississippi Customer Operations Support manager, about Brown’s concerns with power poles and lines. Brown said Lee wants to visit Natchez and take a ride around the city with Brown and get an inventory of Brown’s concerns about poles and sagging lines.

“I feel really good about getting the Entergy Corporation involved in some of the issues that have been going on for many years in the city,” Brown said.

Runnels also mentioned that Entergy has spent approximately $650,000 this year on service reliability improvements in Natchez. The tree-trimming work the company did earlier this year cost approximately $250,000, Runnels said.

Runnels said Entergy is still testing recently purchased technology equipment that will join power grids together. In the event of an outage, Runnels said, Entergy can switch residents without power to a working grid quickly via a computer to allow Entergy to isolate and repair the outage.

The company, Runnels said, also spent approximately $400,000 on the system and another $150,000 to join the main circuits together.

Runnels said the company may spend an additional $400,000 for more equipment for the system in Natchez, but he said he is awaiting final approval for that money.