Michael Blackmer and Scott Nivens (Photos: Michael Donahue)
The Bardog Tavern Sweet 16 Alley Party was held September 8th in Center Lane Alley and inside Bardog Tavern at 73 Monroe Avenue.
The bar, owned by Aldo Dean, opened in 2008, but the first alley party was held in 2009. It grew into the Monroe Avenue Fest, a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital fundraiser that included the Breakaway Bardog 5K, a dunk tank, and Grandma’s Heavenly Meatball Eating Contest. Monroe Avenue between Main Street and Front Street was blocked off.
Melissa Griffin and Eric Bourgeois Aldo Dean Alexis Saunders and Jalisha Toy
“That was all pre-pandemic stuff,” says the bar’s marketing and events director Eric Bourgeois. “That was a huge thing to put on.”
Earl Hines and Stacey BowensDuncan Aiken and Julien Salley Jr.
This was more intimate. It featured Rowdy and the Strays, and DJ Michael Blackmer. People ate hamburger sliders grilled outdoors, played corn hole, and participated in raffles. “This was back to the basics: ‘Hey, thanks for being friends, neighbors, pals,’” Bourgeois says. It was “a celebration of all the friendships we made and maintained.”
Colbey Lamberth and Morgan Heimbach Joe Paschka and Aly Demzik
Sitting at the bar, Colbey Lamberth says, “Aldo is a maverick at bars and restaurants that fit the Memphis scene. There’s something about Bardog. I love this place.”
Losing track of retirement funds is a common and concerning trend that has worsened in recent years. As of May 2023, there were approximately 29.2 million forgotten 401(k) accounts in the United States that held approximately $1.65 trillion in assets. And, due to recent increases in job switching, the number of forgotten 401(k)s has grown by more than 20 percent since May 2021.
Missing out on these retirement funds can put your retirement at risk, as you may end up losing significant assets. Fortunately, there are ways to locate and reclaim lost retirement accounts. The following tips can help.
1. Check with past employers.
If you’ve changed jobs throughout your career, it’s important to follow up with past employers to make sure you didn’t leave any money behind. Retirement plan administrators have several options for how to handle abandoned funds in an employer-sponsored account, based on the amount left in it.
• $1,000 or less — The employer can issue a check and mail it to your last known address. If you’ve moved since leaving a job, you may need to request a new check.
• Between $1,000 and $5,000 — Employers can move funds to an IRA without your consent. You’ll need to ask your past employer how to access the account.
• More than $5,000 — There’s a good chance your funds are still in the employer’s plan. It may be wise to roll over the account balance to an IRA that you control.
2. Search unclaimed property databases.
Sometimes people lose track of their retirement savings when they move and forget to notify past employers of their new address. When an employer or financial institution is unable to reach an account-holder, it may turn over the account to the state’s unclaimed property office.
2. Check the Department of Labor (DOL) abandoned plan database.
If your past employer’s plan was terminated, the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration consolidates information about unclaimed retirement benefits and makes it easy to track down missing funds.
3. Contact the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).
The PBGC can be a great resource if you lost track of a defined benefit pension plan at a previous employer. This organization is a government agency that insures the value of pension benefits and helps individuals locate lost pension plans. Visit pbgc.gov for more information.
4. Track down forgotten IRAs.
If you think you may have abandoned an IRA along the way, take inventory of past bank and investment account statements for any evidence of the account. You can also reach out directly to any financial institutions you’ve worked with in the past to inquire about any inactive or dormant IRAs associated with your name.
If you think you left behind retirement assets at some point, it may be worth the effort of tracking them down. Even if you haven’t contributed to the accounts in many years, the power of compounding has the potential to significantly grow your retirement assets over time.
GeneGard, CFA, CFP, CFT-I, is a Partner and Private Wealth Manager with Creative Planning. Creative Planning is one of the nation’s largest Registered Investment Advisory firms providing comprehensive wealth management services to ensure all elements of a client’s financial life are working together, including investments, taxes, estate planning, and risk management. For more information or to request a free, no-obligation consultation, visit CreativePlanning.com.
“Shock waves” is too strong a term for the reaction, but a fair number of eyebrows have been raised by the surprise action of state Democratic Party chair Hendrell Remus in removing from power local Shelby County party chair Lexie Carter.
The action took place Thursday following a Zoom call between Carter, Remus, and others. Invoking what the state chair said was the absolute authority of the state party over local parties, Remus said Carter had not measured up to the needs of a coordinated Democratic campaign for the fall election.
He mentioned specifically the campaigns for District 97 state representative of Jesse Huseth, who opposes Republican incumbent John Gillespie, and that of Gloria Johnson of Knoxville against GOP U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn.
Remus said he had sent a questionnaire to Carter asking for details of the local party’s readiness for election activity and received insufficient information in response.
Carter professed to be taken by surprise by her removal, having just, as she maintained, presided over the local party’s annual Kennedy Day banquet on September 5th and grossed upwards of $40,000 for party coffers.
She alleged that a number of disagreements and confrontations had occurred between herself and Remus at the recently concluded Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Remus had apparently been considering the removal action well in advance, having discussed the possibility with potential ad hoc successors to Carter the previous week.
He said he would appoint four temporary co-chairs to guide the Shelby County Democratic Party (SCDP) until December, when a local party election would be held. The Flyer has learned that two of those invited to serve in that capacity are outgoing state Rep. Dwayne Thompson and City Council Chair JB Smiley.
Former local party chair and ex-County Commissioner Van Turner, who had assisted Carter in answering Remus’ questionnaire, raised concerns about due process in Carter’s removal and likened his action to the state Republican Party supermajority’s attempt to dominate over the actions of local government.
The new developments recalled the situation of 2016 when then-state Democratic chair Mary Mancini disbanded the Shelby County party following years of local controversy, including charges of embezzlement.
The local party was reconstituted in 2017 with Corey Strong as chair. So far, no names have surfaced as potential local candidates for the permanent chairmanship of SCDP.
As it happens, Remus will be giving up his own chairmanship in January, when his elected term ends. So far the only known candidate to succeed him is Rachel Campbell, chair of the Hamilton County (Chattanooga) Democratic Party and vice chair of the state party.
• Sarah Wilkerson Freeman, the Democratic nominee for the 8th District congressional seat, confirms that Susan Boujnah, a videographer who accompanied her to last month’s Democratic National Convention, is hard at work on an official campaign video, which will be released (presumably via social media) within the month.
Though Freeman has issued no formal debate challenge to Republican incumbent David Kustoff, Freeman observed that the NAACP will be holding an open forum for area candidates in Collierville on October 8th and that Kustoff is among those invited to participate.
Freeman, a resident of Germantown, likes to say she lives “within spitting distance” of her opponent.
• Former U.S. Senator Jim Sasser died at his North Carolina home last week. Sasser represented Tennessee in the Senate from 1977 to 1995 and later served as ambassador to Japan.
Mom is 100 and fabulous. (Photo: Alan VanWyngarden)
I awoke to a loud “Silver Alert” on my phone the other day. I’m not sure why it made a sound, unless I accidentally set up an audible alarm for such things, which is entirely possible. My iPhone is full of tricks and surprises. For example, I haven’t been able to type the letter “p” in texts for six months, which is a -ain in the butt.
At any rate, I reached groggily for the phone and read that “a Silver Alert has been issued on behalf of the Cowan, Tennessee, Police Department for missing 79-year-old Oscar Howard.* He was last seen in the area of Chestnut Street in Cowan wearing a green T-shirt and blue jeans. Howard has a medical condition that may impair his ability to return safely without assistance.”
I thought about Oscar as I wandered into the kitchen, safely and without assistance, wearing a black T-shirt and pajama pants. I hoped he would be found quickly and vowed to keep an eye out for him.
I’d just gotten back the day before from a trip to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where 16 members of my family gathered to celebrate my mother’s 100th birthday, and her remarkable life. Let me tell you, the woman is still sharp, funny, and capable of surprises. She zips around the grounds of her assisted-living complex with a walker, but without further assistance, making sure to log at least a half-hour of fast-striding exercise a day. She still has a great sense of humor and seems to know everyone in the place.
We celebrated my mother’s big day in a private room at an excellent restaurant in Old Mesilla. After dinner, a cake with three large candles was set in front of her (because nobody wants to mess with 100 candles). As we finished singing “Happy Birthday,” there was the usual chorus of “… and many more,” to which she said with a big smile, “Well, one more … or maybe two.” She blew out the candles and said her wish was that we all lived a long and happy life. Then she got up and circled the table with her walker, speaking to everyone in turn, telling me I was “her favorite son,” then, with a grin, telling my brother seated next to me the same thing.
She was on form all evening long and it was a delight to see because like many elderly folks, her mind can sometimes misfire when she gets tired. She can “spiral,” as they say, and repeat herself in the course of a conversation. She does so cheerfully, and is clueless that she’s doing it, but she’s 100 years old, after all, and some age-related mental decline is natural.
But even so, it was surprising when she suddenly stood up and announced loudly to the room that, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs! The people that came in. They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the pets of the people that live there! And this is what’s happening in our country!” We gasped and turned to each other, unsure of what to make of such a statement. Then she shouted, “They want to have transgender operations on illegal aliens in prison!” Then she snarled, “In six states, they’re executing babies after they’re born!”
At that point, we realized Mom needed to be taken back to her apartment. It was past 9 p.m. and she was obviously spiraling, spouting nonsense. She needed rest. Everyone understood, so we bid our good nights and gently escorted her to our car. It was still a wonderful evening and a memory I’ll always treasure …
Oh, wait. Oh, jeez. No, no, no. I’m so sorry. I guess I was having a bit of a senior moment myself there. My mother didn’t actually say any of that stuff. I was somehow confusing her birthday party with the presidential debate I’d watched the night before. An easy enough mistake to make, I think you’d agree. Both involved an elderly person up past their bedtime. (And not just me.) And, frankly, I suspect it may be time for a Silver Alert for one of them. Like Oscar, he may not have the ability to return home safely without assistance.
We have a video podcast! Wait. Does that make it just a talk show? Either way, we’ve been working on a new weekly … thing. It’s not polished up yet but head over to our YouTube channel for an early look.
Weird Elon
Posted to YouTube my Elon Musk
Memphis businessman Elon Musk tweeted something just so weird last week, earning him millions of ughs and boos from every corner of the internet.
Underground, indie singer/songwriter Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris for president with a picture of her cat (iykyk). This prompted Memphis businessman Elon Musk to tweet, “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.”
Propers
Posted to Reddit by u/AlfofMelmac
Reddit user AlfofMelmac gave propers where they were due last week with a post titled, “Good job, MLGW!” The remnants of Hurricane Francine blustered through Memphis last week and the Redditor was “pleasantly surprised to see that there weren’t a whole lot of lights out on my commute, and not a ton of outages compared to prior big storms!”
The rate of food price increases is expected to slow in the remainder of the 2024 through 2025 after several turbulent years that have left some wondering if consumers have been gouged.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) latest Consumer Price Index report predicts all food costs will rise by 2.3 percent this year. Those costs are expected to rise by 2 percent next year. However, food-at-home prices (think grocery store prices) are expected to only rise by 1.2 percent while food-away-from home prices (think restaurants) are expect to rise 4.1 percent.
Food prices surged in the onset of the Covid pandemic, raising all food prices by a bit more than 3 percent in 2020. This increased to nearly 4 percent in 2021.
But food prices leapt up by nearly 10 percent in 2022, the highest increase in food prices since 1979, according to the USDA. Some of this can be explained by a bird flu outbreak that affected egg and poultry prices, and the war in Ukraine, which the feds say compounded other economy-wide inflationary pressures like high energy costs. This trend slowed last year, with food prices rising by nearly 6 percent.
So, prices have gone up. But is it price gouging? That’s what the USDA wants to know and is empowering states to help root out it out.
In July 2023, the USDA and a bipartisan group of attorneys general in 31 states and the District of Columbia formed a task force to find price gouging and other anti-consumer business behavior and end it.
To get there, the Agricultural Competition Partnership (ACP) combined experts, state and local officials, and market research. Also, the USDA will funnel money and other resources to state attorneys general so they can keep a close eye on activities in their states.
“By placing necessary resources where they are needed most and helping states identify and address anticompetitive and anti-consumer behavior, in partnership with federal authorities, through these cooperative agreements we can ensure a more robust and competitive agricultural sector,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at the time.
So far, Tennessee has not joined this group. However, two Nashville Democrats — Sen. Charlane Oliver and Rep. Aftyn Behn — urged Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to do so last month.
“High prices at the grocery store have weighed heavily on Tennessee families, and they deserve to know that their state government is taking every possible step to ensure fairness in the marketplace,” Oliver said in a statement. “Joining this task force would demonstrate our commitment to protecting consumers and promoting economic fairness for all Tennesseans.”
Oliver and Behn worked this past legislative session to eliminate Tennessee’s sales tax on groceries. The effort was thwarted and the two said, “Republicans in the state legislature opted to pass a $5.5 billion tax handout for large corporations instead.”
However, they think joining the USDA task force on price gouging is one way that could help control costs of everyday goods for Tennesseans.
“Corporate consolidation and anti-competitive practices in food and agricultural markets have had a detrimental impact on the U.S. economy, leading to unfair competition and increased prices for families,” reads their letter to Skrmetti last month. “By joining the Agricultural Competition Partnership, your office would play a crucial role in addressing these issues and working towards solutions that can bring down the cost of groceries for Tennessee families.
“Additionally, this partnership can help find ways to boost wages for family farmers and small agricultural businesses, which are vital components of our state’s economy.”
Skrmetti’s office has not commented publicly about the request. But during National Ag Day in March, his office tweet-thanked the state’s “farmers for feeding our state and the nation!” They also tweeted photos of Skrmetii in a chore vest, work gloves, and rolled-up sleeves holding a baby goat and a bale of hay.
Tennessee’s motto “Agriculture and Commerce” was in action today on the Hill as we celebrated National Ag Day.
AG Skrmetti & Brandon Smith participated in a straw bale toss and saw some of our state’s finest livestock.
Entering federal court on April 4, 1968, to address the injunction against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. are, left to right, King advisors James Lawson and Andrew Young, along with lawyers Lucius Burch, Charlie Newman, and Mike Cody. Photo: Tom Barber, Memphis Press-Scimitar newspaper morgue, Special Collections Department, University of Memphis Libraries
W. J. Michael “Mike” Cody, an influential Memphian in the fields of law and politics, died Sunday at the age of 88 at Baptist Memorial Hospital after a lengthy illness.
Cody was well known as a reformer, even before his first tenure in local government as a city councilman from 1975 to 1977. He had been one of the local legal advisers to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 and had helped King strike down a ban on a second march on behalf of striking sanitation workers, mere hours before the fateful assassination of the civil rights leader.
In the wake of that tragedy, Cody collaborated with the Rev. James Lawson in forming the organization that became Memphis Legal Services.
Cody was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as U.S. Attorney for the Memphis district in 1977 and served through 1981. When Memphis Mayor Wyeth Chandler resigned to become a judge in late 1982, Cody became a candidate in a special election to succeed Chandler.
He would finish a strong third in that race, behind J.O. Patterson and Dick Hackett, the eventual runoff winner. In 1984, Cody, a Democrat, was appointed state Attorney General, across party lines, by Republican Governor Lamar Alexander, serving until 1988.
Cody, a renowned athlete during his college years at Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College), was also well known as an inveterate runner who participated in numerous marathons. He was named to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. He was also the author of a 1992 book, Honest Government: An Ethics Guide to Public Service.
Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen remembered Cody this way: “I knew Mike Cody all of my adult life. He was a highly respected attorney and public official, and was scrupulously honest. He did admirable service for Memphis, Tennessee, and the United States. As Lucius Burch would say, ‘The hair of the hypocrite was not seen about him.’ I extend my sincere condolences. His was a life well-lived.”
Cody is survived by his wife, Suzanna Cody; two daughters, Jane Cody of Corrales, New Mexico, and Mia Cody of Memphis; a son, Michael Cody of Germantown; three grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
Boats docked at the Riverside Park Marina south of Downtown Memphis are getting cut off from the Mississippi River Nov. 2, 2022. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
For the third year in a row, extreme drought conditions in the Midwest are drawing down water levels on the Mississippi River, raising prices for companies that transport goods downstream and forcing governments and business owners to seek alternative solutions.
Extreme swings between drought and flooding have become more frequent in the region, scientists say, as climate change alters the planet’s weather patterns and inches the average global temperature continually upwards.
“Without question, it’s discouraging that we’re in year three of this. Because that is quite unique to have multiple years in a row of this,” said Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, a trade organization representing Midwest soy growers. “We’re obviously trending in the wrong direction.”
Since 2022, much of the Midwest has experienced some level of drought, with the driest conditions concentrated in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas. Record rainfall in June and during part of July temporarily broke that dry spell, forecasters say, only for drought conditions to reemerge in recent weeks along the Ohio River basin, which typically supplies more water to the Mississippi than any other major tributary.
Dee Wisecarver, a commercial fisherman from Hamburg, Arkansas, looks out onto the mud-covered Panther Forest boat ramp in August of 2024.
(Lucas Dufalla/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
Water levels have been dropping in the lower Mississippi since mid-July, federal data show, reaching nearly seven feet below the historic average in Memphis on September 13. In October 2023, water levels reached a record-low -11 feet in Memphis. Remnants of Hurricane Francine, which made landfall in Louisiana Wednesday night as a Category 2 storm, “will provide only temporary relief,” the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a news release Wednesday.
“Rainfall over the Ohio Valley is also not looking to be widespread and heavy enough to generate lasting effects and anticipate that much of the rainfall will soak into the ground with little runoff,” the agency said in the release.
Those conditions have raised prices for companies transporting fuel and grain down the Mississippi in recent weeks, as load restrictions force barge operators to limit their hauls, which squeezes their profit margin. Barge rates from St. Louis reached $24.62 a ton in late August and $27.49 per ton by the following week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Historically low water levels of the Mississippi River have caused massive barge backups on Thursday, October 27, 2022 in Merman-Shelby Forest State Park. . (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian)
Steenhoek said barge prices during the first week of September were 8 percent higher than the same week last year and 57 percent higher than the three-year average. “It does change that supply-demand relationship,” he said, “because now all of a sudden you’re having to transport a given amount of freight with less capacity.”
A river in flux
Aaron Wilson, Ohio’s state climatologist and a professor at Ohio State University, said the whiplash between this summer’s record wet months and September’s drought conditions appears to fit what could be an emerging climate trend observed by researchers.
But evidence also suggests the Midwest is experiencing more frequent swings between extreme wet and extreme dry seasons, with climate models predicting that the trend will persist into the future, said Wilson, who was the lead author of the assessment’s Midwest chapter.
“This was front and center for us,” he said. “One of the main things that we talked about were these rapid oscillations … between wet to dry and dry to wet extremes.”
Research also suggests that seasonal precipitation is trending in opposite directions, and will continue to do so in the coming decades, Wilson added. “And so what you get is too much water in the winter and spring and not enough during the growing season,” he said, referring to summer months.
If that evidence holds true, it could have notable impacts on U.S. food exports moving forward.
Future impacts on shipping
Transporting goods, including corn, soy, and fuel, on the Mississippi is more efficient pound for pound than ground transportation, business groups say, and gives the U.S. an edge in a competitive global market. According to the Waterways Council, a trade association for businesses that use the Mississippi River, a standard 15-barge load is equivalent to 1,050 semi trucks or 216 train cars — meaning domestic farmers and other producers can save significant time and money moving their goods by boat.
The majority of U.S. agricultural exports rely on the Mississippi to reach the international market, as farmers move their crops to export hubs on the Gulf Coast, said Debra Calhoun, senior vice president of the Waterways Council.
“More than 65 percent of our national agriculture products that are bound for export are moving on this inland waterway system,” she said. “So this system is critical to farmers of any size farm.”
The ramifications could be especially harmful to the soy industry, Steenhoek said, since about half of the soy grown in the U.S. is exported. By the last week of August, grain exports transported by barge fell 17 percent compared to the week before, according to a Thursday report released by the USDA.
Steenhoek said the increased costs to U.S. growers hurt their ability to compete globally. Any price increase to domestic grain could encourage international clients to instead buy from rival countries like Brazil or Argentina, he said.
While it’s typical for water levels on the Mississippi to drop during the fall months, Steenhoek said, the recent years of drought have been a real wakeup call for farmers to diversify their supply chains. Soy growers, he said, have since set up new supply chain agreements with rail lines and have even invested in new export terminals in Washington state and on the coast of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.
Luckily, Calhoun said, disruptions to river transportation this year haven’t been nearly as bad as they were last year, when the Mississippi’s water levels reached record lows. Several barges were grounded last year and in 2022, she said, referring to when boats get stuck on the riverbed or in areas where sediment has built up. That hasn’t occurred so far this year.
Dee Wisecarver, a commercial fisherman from Hamburg, Arkansas, walks up the dry, mud-covered Panther Forest boat ramp in August of 2024. The ramp allows boaters to enter the Mississippi River through an old channel.
(Lucas Dufalla/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
She chalks that up to proactive efforts this year by companies and federal agencies, like the Army Corps of Engineers, to mitigate transportation disruptions.
George Stringham, chief of public affairs for the Corps’ St. Louis District, said they started dredging the river a few weeks earlier this year. “We started early to get ahead of things, in anticipation, after having two straight years of low water conditions,” said Stringham. Dredging involves moving sediment on the riverbed from areas where it can cause problems to boats to areas where it won’t.
Wilson, Ohio’s climatologist, said he has seen stronger cooperation among stakeholders in tackling this issue. “It’s a mix of climate scientists, social scientists and planners and emergency preparedness folks that are really coordinating this effort,” he said.
The result, Calhoun said, is that their coalition of groups have been able to handle the disruptions relatively well this year, which leaves her feeling cautiously optimistic. “It’s really hard, you know, to track this and try to figure out is it just normal? Is it getting much worse? Are we going to have to make significant changes, and if so, what would they be? But we’re not there yet,” she said.
Today we have a world premiere music video, which is a collaboration between two Memphis originals.
General Labor is Thomas Corbin, Elijah Posten, and Carlos Carrasco. “Illuminator” is a throbbing, screaming synth punk symphony.
“Though we work in repetitive, clock-synced instrumentation that rides on rails, we try to always leave space for magic,” says Corbin. “We draw heavily from Surrealist techniques and Oblique Strategies for finding our words and instrumental composition, so that the meaning seems to be coming from ‘somewhere else.’ For that reason, the lyrics are largely open to interpretation.
“However, in retrospect, ‘Illuminator’ seems to describe a fearless pursuit of wisdom and truth, trusting a process of transformation that carries one through the dark night of the soul. If this thread of meaning is followed, ‘Illuminator’ appears to be about ego death. It’s about finding the flame that burns inside of us all and harnessing it in a way that serves a higher purpose rather than fueling the will of self.
“The lyrics reflect a journey of self-discovery, transformation, and enlightenment through philosophical and alchemical lenses. It describes a search for hidden truths beyond the visible world, symbolizing the pursuit of deeper understanding by tapping into one’s subconscious mind, guiding the seeker toward a greater self-awareness.
The short answer is that we have no idea what it means!”
Thomas Corbin
“The alignment of senses that metamorphoses the seeker from a shadow self to illuminated self signifies the culmination of alchemical philosophy where body, mind, and spirit harmonize, and where the excess ‘dross’ of character flaws and maladaptations are burned off, revealing the purified gold within. That’s the long explanation, anyway. The short answer is that we have no idea what it means!”
The video was shot at a collaborative performance between the band and Graham Burks’ circuit-bending visuals.
“The live performance featured in the video was recorded at Black Lodge, to whom we are incredibly grateful for letting us pursue such an ambitious experiment,” says Corbin. “We wanted to stay true to this attitude of subconscious exploration and truth-seeking through artistic expression.
“There was no real concept other than to find the magic in the moment, all the way from the song’s inception to the audiovisual performance, recording, and current debut in video form.”
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Hurricane Francine has impacted more than 34,000 Memphis Light, Gas and Water (MLGW) customers while also causing record-breaking rainfall of 4.25 inches.
The storm brought in winds up to 57 mph and according to MLGW this caused a number of downed limbs and trees and outages. As a result, the utility company has more than 50 crews working around the clock to clear debris and work on storm restoration.
MLGW president and CEO Doug McGowen said they are prioritizing the largest outages and customers who have been without service the longest.
“We are asking everyone for their patience as we take care of the damage that came from the storm and prepare for what is ahead,” McGowen said.
Work such as replacing power poles can take an average of eight hours. During this time crews are working to close roads, direct traffic, and coordinate with law enforcement agencies. MLGW said underground outages can take longer than overhead outages.
Some of the areas that MLGW prioritizes include hospitals, facilities with large community impact, and areas with large members of customers without power.
Customers are urged to report outages on the MLGW app or by calling 544-6500.
MLGW also asks that customers stay away from downed power lines and to not attempt to remove fallen tree limbs or debris. Customers should also report these to MLGW.
