Nashville Electric Service adds outage updates as frustration grows

One week after Winter Storm Fern felled lines across Davidson County, tens of thousands of Nashville Electric Service customers remain in the dark in freezing temperatures.

On Jan. 30, NES President and CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin introduced a new outage map that shows crew locations and promised an address‑level update and restoration‑estimate tool “very soon.”

Even so, roughly 59,000 customers were still without power by the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 30, and residents voiced growing frustration as crews continue to repair hundreds of ice-damaged power lines.

NES officials said more than 1,100 linemen and 350 vegetation crews, as well as National Guardsmen and other state agencies, are prioritizing large outage groups and critical facilities. The public utility warned that repairs may require temporary shutoffs and could be re‑set by new limb breaks.

The updated map tool, accessible at nespower.com, “will tell them if a crew is working on their specific circuit, not just a circuit on their street, but their circuit,” Broyles-Aplin said, adding that it will update to indicate when the power is turned back on.

She added that the company hopes to unveil an estimation tool for residents to see how long their power is estimated to be out.

“With the magnitude of this storm, and the level of damage, there was not an easy way to get restoration estimates,” she said. “There wasn’t a hard way to get estimates either. It has been incredibly challenging. But crews have now gotten work done to a level where we believe we can come up with good restoration estimates.”

Gov. Bill Lee issued a statement Jan. 30 calling on NES to provide better power-restoration timelines to customers.

“Tennesseans are facing an extremely challenging recovery process as a result of Winter Storm Fern, and they need a clear timeline for power restoration, transparency on the number of linemen deployed, and a better understanding when work will be completed in their neighborhood,” Lee said.

How are Nashville Electric Service outages prioritized?

Around 160,000 repairs have been made since the start of the storm, NES officials said Jan. 30.

Outage prioritization starts with large-scale outage groups, as well as “critical referrals,” which include nursing homes and places with vulnerable populations, Broyles-Aplin said. Smaller crews are working to restore “one-off” outages that are in largely repaired neighborhoods.

Brandon Whitlock, operations manager for NES, said the prioritization system was needed to keep repairs moving quickly.

“If I take 15 minutes to hook up each of the 200,000 customers we got, you can do the math on how long that will take,” he said. We had to rebuild the backbone of our system. As we progress, be patient with us.”

In addition, lines have been re-damaged over the past few days due to branches snapping as crews work to repair the lines.

“It has really slowed our progress,” he said.

Will restored power go back out?

Broyles-Aplin said secondary outages are possible.

Broken power poles can take eight to 10 hours to repair, slowing overall restoration. Crews may also need to temporarily shut off power as they reconnect neighboring customers.

“There are times where we may have to turn off power while we connect things and de-energize things to keep crews safe,” she said. “It’s temporary.”

Were union workers turned away by NES?

Members of the local chapter of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) told The Tennessean that NES turned away the union’s offer to provide lineman after the ice storm knocked out power for more than 230,000 customers.

More: Electrical workers union says NES turned them away in wake of crippling ice storm

Broyles-Aplin refuted the claims Friday.

“In regard to union line workers, that was a false story,” she said. “There may be one-off situations… But the allegation that we are not a union friendly shop is not true at all. NES does not have a problem with any union.”

Why are NES customers getting texts that their power is back if it isn’t?

Reports of NES customers getting texts from the company falsely stating that their power has been restored has frustrated residents.

Broyles-Aplin said she shared those sentiments.

“The text message situation is, I will admit, frustrating to me,” she said.

She stated that, due to errors, the company has turned off the system that sends texts en masse for power restoration.

“I do not want anymore of those texts going out telling people their power is back when it is not,” she said. “So that should not happen again.”

Was NES prepared for this storm?

Broyles-Aplin said the shifting weather forecast made it difficult to plan.

“We were expecting to get a snowstorm with a little bit of ice, until about a day-and-a-half before,” she said. “So, we went from getting a little bit of snow to getting an enormous amount of ice that blanketed our entire service area. At that point, they had staged for a snowstorm. And an ice storm is an entirely different animal, especially a 30-year ice storm.”

She said NES will do an “after-action review” to review storm guidelines for the future.

Frustration mounts as residents go into second weekend of dangerous cold with no power

Impatience was palpable at an afternoon press conference Jan. 30 as temperatures dropped.

Broyles-Aplin stated that multiple NES workers have received threats of violence over the past few days, and two employees even had their vehicles burglarized.

Metro Councilwoman Tonya Hancock joined the gathered press to question NES, specifically asking why an electric pole in her district, which had been on fire since Sunday, had not been addressed.

“We’ve called Metro Fire every single day… NES is supposed to respond. So we have had toxic fumes going into the air since Sunday,” she said.

Residents also took their chance to speak with NES directly.

Terry Miles, a 59-year-old Nashville native who lives in Madison, told gathered reporters and NES officials that his home has been out of power since Monday. Miles has been heating his home with a fish frier.

He begged NES officials to let him help clear an easement in his yard to get them to his electric components faster.

“We ain’t got much money around here,” he said, gesturing with hands purple from the cold. “But if there’s anything I can do to make this easier for you, please tell me.”

Miles told reporters that he tried to go to a warming center, but they wouldn’t allow his dog inside.

“This is the coldest and worst I’ve ever been in my damn life,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “I’ve done everything I could. I’ve got a fish frier in there and a big tank — I know it’s probably not safe. But I run it for 30 minutes and leave it off for an hour. I’m taking a chance to kill myself and my wife to stay warm.”

Four adults, including Miles, are huddled in his home, where he has covered every wall with blankets to provide insulation.

“All we’ve been eating is peanut butter crackers for days, and we’re about out of that,” he said.

An evening demonstration was set up outside of NES headquarters Jan. 30, with a small crowd of around 20 individuals holding signs denouncing NES’ response.

“As a result of the fact that NES is cheap, thousands and thousands of people have been freezing in the dark for a week, and these outage may last into next week,” said Cealia Guerrero, of Nashville People Power, a local activist group.

Nicole Minyard, an East Nashville resident, said she has been couch-surfing for six days.

“I’ve been out of power since 6:30am on Sunday — and my birthday is this Sunday,” she said. “Wonder if we’ll celebrate it in the dark and cold.”

She spoke to the crowd about the heavy costs racking up for Nashville residents in response to the lack of power.

“I have had friends spending their monthly rent or mortgage staying at hotels and Air BnB’s right now,” she said. “This is unacceptable and unaffordable. I have spent my past week without power helping one of my elderly neighbors. She didn’t even know about the warming shelters!”

Minyard said her neighbor was in the “early stages of hypothermia” when they “dug her out” of her home.

“It is unacceptable,” she said. “People in my community are suffering and they don’t have the resources they need.”

Have a story to tell? Reach Angele Latham by email at alatham@gannett.com, or follow her on Twitter at @angele_latham