Nashville power outages continue with no restoration timelines available for neighborhoods
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) — Nashville Electric Service leaders again refused to provide specific power restoration timelines during a press conference Friday, frustrating residents who have been without electricity for six days following a historic ice storm.
Line crews have been working since Sunday morning when 230,000 people lost power. Six days later, around 65,000 customers are still without power and the utility company still will not say when different neighborhoods can expect electricity restored.
“We want to get restoration times to customers. Customers deserve to know and we want them to know. I want them to be able to plan their lives and figure this out and I’m committed to making that happen,” said Teresa Broyles-Aplin, president and CEO of Nashville Electric Service.
Residents express mounting frustration
Drew Flaherty has been staying with family because his East Nashville home is 38 degrees inside. The NES outage map has not provided updates for his area in five days.
“I would like to be able to schedule my life more than one day at a time, but that’s just kind of how it is right now. I would say that is probably the most frustrating piece is the uncertainty of it all,” Flaherty said.
Flaherty suggested NES provide area-specific updates so people know around when their power could return and can make plans on where they are going to live to stay warm.
Nick Marchionda, who lives two miles from downtown Nashville, said the roads in his neighborhood were cleared of fallen trees but are still covered with fallen power lines.
Marchionda said alleys are even worse, with large tree branches hanging on wires. He has an infant and knew they couldn’t stay at home during the power outage, but have run out of money for a hotel and are moving to stay with friends in Mt. Juliet.
“We’ve had NES power outages before and it usually doesn’t go great,” he said. “Still six days later without power, so yeah, it’s frustrating because I’d like to know, do I need to stay in this hotel for a week, two weeks, who knows.”
Metro Council demands action
Nine Metro Council members sent a letter to NES demanding every customer receive minimum and maximum restoration timelines. Council Member Jacob Kupin said people understand the storm’s historic nature but need planning information with dangerous temperatures approaching.
“We still don’t have a timeline,” Kupin said. “People have either gotten their power back on or have no concept of what their next week or two weeks might look like.”
“What concerns me is that they keep saying they’re working on it. We’re running out of time to work on it. We’re moving through this disaster,” he said.
Kupin and the other Council Members also called for better disaster preparedness planning for future citywide outages. He was shocked NES didn’t have a better plan and resources in place for a storm like this.
NES plans to launch a new interactive map on its website Friday night showing where crews are working and specific circuits under repair. The map will not include restoration time estimates.
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