By Thomas Sellers Jr.
In the blank of an eye, the winds blew, rain poured and the sixth strongest storm in Memphis history was gone within 15 minutes.
According to MLGW, more than 700,000 customers in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia were impacted by the “Super Cell” thunderstorms on Sunday. A little more than 27 percent of Shelby County customers, 30 percent of Hardeman County customers and more than 50 percent of Fayette County customers lost power.
In Shelby County the hardest hit areas were Millington and Bartlett. Restoration was underway Monday and is expected to last multiple days. MLGW asks customers still without power to make a plan.
MLGW’s pumping stations were functioning at capacity, however, the systems did suffer power loss and that was why customers are asked to conserve.
On Monday, MLGW had 69 electric repair crews working to repair damage. They are joined by 35 troubleshooter crews, 47 tree cutting crews and 38 damage assessment crews.
MLGW and contract crews have been hard at work safely restoring power to more than 40,000 customers after Sunday night’s supercell thunderstorms took out power to nearly 120,000 customers.
Important Notices/Reminders:
• There was a precautionary water boil advisory for parts of North Shelby County.
• Call 528-4465 to report emergencies like downed power lines and gas leaks. MLGW asks customers to stay away from downed power lines.
• MLGW’s Customer Care Center is taking emergency calls only.
• MLGW customers can report power outages and check the status of their outage through My Account or by calling the automated outage number: 544-6500. Customers can also check the online outage map: mlgw.com/outagecenter.
• An emergency response dashboard is online at mlgw.com/stormresponse.
A Message to MLGW customers from Doug McGowen
Last evening, our community suffered extensive damage from 75 mph winds that were caused by quickly moving supercell thunderstorms. These storms wreaked havoc across our area, causing more than 700,000 customers to lose power – 122,000 in the MLGW service area. The damage and outages rank this storm as the sixth worst in MLGW history.
As the storms were heading to us, our team mobilized assistance from outside contractors to help us in what we predicted would be a very large restoration effort. That help arrived today, and together with MLGW crews, there are about 70 crews working hard to make repairs. In many cases, the damage was caused by falling trees, meaning substantial tree cutting work is required before repairs can be made. We have nearly 50 tree crews actively in the field doing that work.
Our priority is to ensure that we do not precipitate another emergency, and so we focus on ensuring water and sewer systems continue to function and that hospitals can stay open. In a small area of northern Shelby County, our water pumping capacity was impacted by electrical outages, causing low pressures, and reaching a point where a precautionary boil water advisory was required for just that small part of the service area.
I do not have a firm estimate on full restoration given the magnitude of the damage. I ask that everyone presently without power plan to be out for several days’ time, and that our customers who do have power help their friends and neighbors where and when you can. I am aware that temperatures will dramatically increase after Wednesday, and there is urgency to get as much power restored as quickly as we can. I ask for similar urgency for all of us to check on the welfare of neighbors and family.
This storm and the others since the Christmas deep freeze and rolling blackouts that came with it are unprecedented in frequency and damage. While we cannot control weather, you deserve a more resilient and reliable electric system in the face of that weather, and these storms underscore the absolute imperative and urgency to get the work done. I am glad to report that help is coming, and we are underway with a comprehensive approach to improving our system. Simply, we will be investing heavily in vegetation management (tree trimming) to ensure we get to and stay on a three -year cycle, something we haven’t done for several years. We will be replacing significant quantities of aged infrastructure and ensuring our systems are upgraded to modern construction standards. And we will be dramatically improving resilience and reliability by installing a “smart grid” that is able to prevent many outages, and when they do occur, can be “self-healing” and can automatically redirect power around the system, restoring many customers automatically, and pinpointing areas of damage for our crews – saving substantial time and dramatically improving restoration times. These investments will improve performance by more than 50% on average across the system, with bigger impacts in the areas with the worst reliability today.
You have my commitment to seek every resource necessary to get your power restored as quickly as we possibly can.
Sincerely,
Doug McGowen
