Several waves of thunderstorms and high winds traveled through Shelby County yesterday evening, leaving more than 40,000 homes and businesses without power.
- MLGW
The thunderstorms lasted from 4 to 10 p.m., Monday, July 14th. As of Tuesday, July 15th, around 11,000 residents remain powerless.
Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) president Jerry Collins said the bulk of power outages have been restored. But there are still some pockets of the county suffering outages and severe damage from downed power lines and tree limbs. Collins said 19 contractor crews are coming in town today to assist MLGW with its restoration process.
“More than 42,000 homes and businesses lost power as a result of these storms,” Collins said. “By 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, the number of homes and businesses without power had been reduced to about 9,000. These 9,000 include, however, some heavily damaged areas that will require a longer time to repair. We expect all power to be restored by midnight Thursday.”
Around 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, the power outage number increased to more than 11,000. Collins said this is attributed to MLGW crews having to turn circuits off so that they can make needed repairs. He said this causes the numbers to rise for periods of time while crews are working.
MLGW customers can contact (901) 544-6500 to report outages or check on restoration progress anytime of the day and night. Outage numbers can be tracked via MLGW’s outage map here.