BARTLETT, Tenn. — At its peak during Wednesday's storms, a little more than 20,000 MLGW customers lost power, and the utility said all affected should have their power back on by 11 p.m. Thursday.
With MLGW still under the microscope following February's ice storm, Memphians are grateful for the quick response, as those with the utility company said their promised upgrades were fulfilled.
"You know what's coming when you hear the crack, then I heard another crack, then an extended crack and I said, 'Oh, Lord,' and then I heard the boom," Bob Reed of Bartlett said.
"It was one big gust of wind and down it went," added Kayla Johnson, Reed's neighbor.
That's when those living on Greenleaf Street temporarily lost power Wednesday.
"We weren't sure what the severity of the damage was or how far it went," Johnson added.
Her fears were fresh after this block lost power for four days last month, following a major ice storm that caused outages at some point for more than half of all MLGW customers.
"We were really hopeful it wouldn't take long, and thankfully it didn't," Johnson said.
"I do want to commend the utility company for responding so quickly. I didn't say that before," Reed added.
In February, MLGW President JT Young promised improvements which were implemented Wednesday. That included giving customers better estimates of how long they'd be without power.
"We focused on making sure that we let our customers know early enough this time," Gale Jones Carson with MLGW said.
Those with the utility said they also followed through on another promised improvement.
"Making sure crews were called in advance, that we would get them here sooner than we did in the past," Carson added.
Earlier this month, those with MLGW also formed an outage improvement advisory team, with additional recommendations planned for June to limit the aftermath of storms like the one which happened Wednesday.