MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Several rounds of severe weather in Shelby County over the past few weeks has residents wondering what the county’s utility company is going to be doing next to prepare.
“I think this was the most severe that we experienced,” said Marvin Mims Sr., Raleigh Resident.
Mims spent hours looking for a place to sleep after destructive storms left his Raleigh neighborhood and more than 120,000 MLGW customers in the dark.
“We didn’t have power for about five nights,” said Mims, “And so we ended up in Jackson, Tennessee for two nights because there were no hotels in the Memphis area.”
Repairs since the June and July storms have been made, and many Memphians now have their lights turned back on. However, many like Mims just want to see the utility company and the city of Memphis stop these mass outages from happening again.
The utility company said most of the outages people in Shelby County saw came from tree limbs falling on power lines. This is an issue watchdog groups have come down on MLGW recently, saying the company has failed to meet their goal of trimming 1,400 miles of trees each year over the past three.
“It’s just better to get the job done before another storm comes, because we know storms are coming,” said Mims, “Basically go in and do the tree trimming themselves, I think that could’ve prevented some of this, and so that’s one of the things the city has to take an aggressive approach with.”
During the July 11th City Council Committee meeting, MLGW President and CEO Doug McGowen told city leaders how bad the issues actually were. In a powerpoint, he showed that it had been decades since the company trimmed 1,400 miles of trees.
“You’ll see all the way back to 1997, we have not met that even one year,” said McGowen.
In 2020, only 610 miles were trimmed, 550 in 2021, 190 in 2022, and only 64 miles so far this year. This has left areas like Midtown, Millington and Shelby Forest overgrown, and seven to eight years behind schedule.
“It is a critical imperative for us to get this back under control,” said McGowen.
The utility CEO is hoping to move forward with a new tree trimming plan, which would use more than $220 million dollars in MLGW’s budget to pay for tree trimming services from three contractors over the next five years. McGowen told media he is hoping all tree trimming maintenance will be caught up within three years once work begins.
“We will with your approval begin vigorous management as soon as we possibly can,” said McGowen.
The Memphis City Council passed the three contracts unanimously just a few hours later.
During the committee meeting, McGowen also said MLGW will be beginning a new approach following the recent storms. This will involve the company evaluating all the damages in the current utility infrastructure, develop a new five year plan, finish installing a smart grid to help cut down on outages, and reevaluate how the company addresses other issues for MLGW 2045.
