MLGW Crews Respond to Multiple Rounds of Winter Weather

Consecutive days of freezing rain and ice brought much of the Mid-South to a standstill earlier this month.

More than 5,000 MLGW customers lost power when a storm hit on January 30. For the safety of employees and customers, MLGW Community Offices closed and a Board of Commissioners meeting was rescheduled.

Rain kept coming. Ice would melt and re-freeze again, weighing down tree limbs and utility wires. By the time the third wave of the storm system hit Memphis and Shelby County late Wednesday, February 1, some 58,000 customers had experienced an outage. President McGowen called it “a slow motion train wreck.”

Our team did a good job of thinking ahead. MLGW crews worked 16-hour shifts, 24/7 until power was restored to all customers affected by storm related outages.

By Friday, February 3, we were down to fewer than 50 outages, which was “pretty fantastic work” according to President McGowen.

Thanks to the swift work in Memphis, two MLGW crews were able to go to Holly Springs, Mississippi to help our neighbors in need.