MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The threat of another ice storm in the Memphis area comes about one year after the ice storm that greatly affected the city and left more than 240,000 Memphis Light Gas and Water customers without power or heat at some point.
It sparked heavy criticism from the public and resulted in MLGW leadership promising new improvements, creating an Outage Improvement Team.
The team’s main goals included giving customers better estimates on how long they'll be without power and providing more up-to-date information and throughout a storm and/or outage.
MLGW officials said they believe they are much better equipped in 2023, but some customers remain skeptical.
“Kids, puppies — everything needs to be warm,” Memphis resident Greg Locke said. “It’s kind of hard to do that when the light company here in the city gives you such a hard time.”
Locke says he and his family lost power for nearly two weeks during 2022’s storm.
“It was really hard to get Memphis Light Gas and Water on the phone about the matter,” he said. “Never actually received any kind of call just to see if everything was taken care of. No return phone calls.”
Better communication is one of the problems that MLGW says it has worked to remedy through its improved text alert system.
“It was very, very important to our customers that they have current information about storms and also current information about their outage restoration,” said Gale Jones Carson, MLGW Vice President of Community and External Affairs.
Carson said that in recent years, money from a 2019 rate hike helped the utility convert tens of millions of dollars to upgrade its electric infrastructure and make sure all its substations are in working order.
“Since our last ice storm, MLGW has spent millions, literally millions of dollars in upgrading our infrastructure,” she said. “So some of the issues or problems that we had before, we won't have this particular time.”
Since the 2022 storm, Carson said they've also adjusted their damage assessment strategy and have been working to reduce the number of trees that could pull down wires or damage homes.
“We have made significant improvements in tree trimming,” she said. “We did have a problem with manpower, companies trimming our trees but we have worked diligently on that.”
Locke is among the MLGW customers who still have their doubts.
“As cold as it was this last time around, it’s pretty concerning,” he said. “Especially if you have a family at home.”
Carson estimates that about 90,000 of MLGW’s more than 400,000 customers are signed up for text alerts.