Severe weather to ramp up in central US
The potential for severe weather is rising, with severe thunderstorms that are expected across the Plains and Midwest.
Thousands in Shelby County were without power after thunderstorms rolled through the area Tuesday morning. By 10 a.m. power had been restored to over 23,000 customers. Memphis Light, Gas & Water took to X, formerly known as Twitter to say that 9% of customers in the Northeast area experienced outages, mainly due to storm-related damage to substations.
The morning thunderstorms caused over 31,000 customers to lose power as of 9:30 a.m., according to the Memphis Light, Gas & Water customer outage map.
Power outages peaked around 9 a.m. with 37,000 customers impacted.
The large outages are concentrated near Bartlett and Cordova, but other areas around Shelby County are also experiencing power outages.
Power outage map
MLGW said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that they are aware of the outages and are working to restore power safely.
How is MLGW trying to prevent outages?
Last year, MLGW President Doug McGowen, in multiple public appearances after major summer storms hit the area, explained that MLGW had not invested in infrastructure updates or tree trimming for a long time, and the Memphis area is paying for it now.
The five-year infrastructure plan approved in 2020 should be about 70% complete, but it’s severely lagging in some areas, McGowen has said.
The areas in which MLGW is furthest behind in the plan include vegetation management, something particularly impactful since 60% of recent outages have been attributed to trees.
The other area in which MLGW is falling most behind is distribution automation, in which MLGW moves to input a smart grid system with fewer customers impacted by each outage. The smart grid also will identify where breaks are in the system, allowing crews to go and fix them immediately.
McGowen has said in the past that MLGW is working to catch up on vegetation management and implementing smart grid technology.
This is a developing story and will be updated.