MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The city of Memphis and Memphis Gas, Light and Water are assessing the damage that floods and severe weather caused to Memphis.

“I think we did very well as a whole, the city had over 600 flooding complaints starting Wednesday night, 120 down trees we responded to,” said Scott Morgan, Director of Public Works, City of Memphis.

Morgan says much of the flooding seen in the city was caused by clogged inlets telling crews to clear as much debris as they could before the several rounds of storms hit. 

“Some of the drains in the drainage system you know throughout the city is not designed to handle a storm event that large and unfortunately it’s just too much water for the system to handle,” said Morgan.

He says they did have some reported backups in basements. There are some homes in Memphis with basements which is kind of the lower spot of the system, and the data is still being accumulated.

“I will say the good thing for Memphis, we do have a separate storm sewer, the storm drainage system, and sewer system,” Morgan.

As for power, MLGW says there were hundreds of people working around the clock on the storm. 

“I think the message here is the investments that we are making in our system are paying off, the significance of tree trimming that we have done has certainly improved the reliability and resilience of our system,” said Doug McGowen, MLGW CEO, and President.

MLGW and the city of Memphis say they are still calculating to see how much responding to the severe weather costs. They will then look to see if they will be eligible for any state or federal funds.