MEMPHIS, Tenn. — On Christmas day, several power outages affected more than 17,000 MLGW customers.
“They went out three or four times and then boom, just stayed out,” said Patti Foster, who lives in Cordova.
Foster was one of the several people without power going into Monday night, which stopped her Christmas dinner in its tracks.
“Eventually, I was 'Abe Lincolning' it next to a candle, reading a book, and it’s just very frustrating because...it was Christmas,” said Foster.
Foster and her husband had their Christmas dinner in candlelight, but instead of the ham Foster planned to make, the couple ate fruit salad.
Meanwhile, those hoping to enjoy a magical Starry Nights light show at Shelby Farms were instead sent home in darkness, adding several unanswered questions for people like Foster.
“I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Last year, we had cold weather, and it was horrible, so more or less I understood, but this year it was abnormally warm, so I didn’t see what the reason was,” said Foster.
On Tuesday, an MLGW spokesperson said a broken utility pole on the main part of a circuit is the reason why 3,500 customers were left in the dark, but crews are unsure of what broke it. The utility company said power went out around 3:30 p.m., and a majority of it was restored by 9 p.m.
In Collierville, the utility spokesperson said transmission lines went offline to a local substation, which left 14,000 without power. MLGW said it is still investigating the source of the issue. These outages lasted less than an hour, according to MLGW.
With the winter season just getting underway, Foster said a modern power grid and better communication from MLGW will be more critical than ever.
