BARTLETT, Tenn. — After a weekend storm left 120,000 MLGW customers without power, the utility company is making progress. Near the end of June 26, more than 74,000 customers still do not have power.
Most of the areas are concentrated North of Memphis, including Millington, Raleigh, Northeast Memphis, Cordova, Bartlett and Lakeland.
“Our power went out around 6:50 p.m.” said Glenda Hicks, 21st Century Memphis or Bust.
Some living in the Mid-South are now being asked to boil their water before they drink it, cook with it or brush their teeth. Those customers live in the northern parts of Shelby County along the Titpton County line.
MLGW said the advisory was issued due to low water pressure.
“The damage is wide spread,” said Doug McGowen, MLGW President and CEO in a news conference.
MLGW said it deployed almost 190 crews to restore power to hospitals, water and sewer lines as well as to assess the full scope of the damage from Sunday’s storm.
“This is the sixth worst storm in Memphis Light Gas and Water History,” said McGowen, “We’re asking friends to help friends, family to help family. We will do our best to get power on as quickly as we can, but I cannot today give you an estimate for full restoration.”
The utility company CEO said a majority of the damage is due to overgrown branches that should have been trimmed back but were not. It is an issue many MLGW customers are annoyed with.
Many people are wanting to know what happened to the company’s five year improvement plan, which included trimming back 1,400 miles of trees a year. The company has failed to do it over the past three years.
“Citizens are being totally neglected,” said Hicks.
MLGW said it plans on investing $200 million in contracts to help catch up on the backlog. Still, watchdog groups like 21st Century Memphis or Bust are demanding the Memphis City Council make for of an effort when it comes to quality control.
“Reconsider bringing tre- trimming back in-house, where there’s better quality control, and leadership can say, 'yes you’re doing this right, no you need to be servicing this area better,' so that all customers are being taken care off,” said Ray Bauer of 21st Century Memphis or Bust.
Right now we are supposed to be in year four of the five year improvement plan. McGowen said in Monday’s news conference the pandemic has pushed this back by around two or three years.
The CEO is hopeful the new contracts will catch the county up, however said this will be done in five more years.