MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Snow is falling around the Mid-South, and it could affect everything from households to travel to school.
National Weather Service is projecting anywhere from 5 to 8 inches across the Mid-South before Monday at midnight. It’s great to look at but could cause issues for residents. MLGW and the city of Memphis have been preparing for this winter weather for the past week.
This storms comes after the ice storm that knocked out power for more than 10,000 residents, the utility company has restored power to 99.8% of the area according to its outages map.
MLGW says crews are ready for the snowstorm.
“If another storm comes this coming weekend as expected, we will already have crews on standby, ready to hit the ground running and work 24 hours until all customers services is restored,” Gale Jones Carson, MLGW Vice President of Community and External Affairs, said.
The city of Memphis is also working ahead, but will admittedly face some challenges.
Officials say crews are salting major roads and streets early this evening, but equipment shortages make it difficult to treat the entire city at once, after the snow has touched down.
“We don’t treat all the roads. We don’t have the capacity to treat all the 6,000 lane miles of city streets. So we focus on the major roadways and the bridges and overpasses,” Robert Knecht, the Director Of Public Works, said.
If you do have a power outage to report, please call 901-544-6500.
North Mississippi Preparing for Winter Storm:
Parts of North Mississippi are expected to be hit hard by Monday’s winter storm. Many of the major roads are clear right now but snow and ice continue to accumulate.
The DeSoto County Board of Supervisor’s President Mark Gardner tells WREG-TV the county has been preparing for tonight’s winter storm all weekend.
“Definitely want to watch bridges and overpasses and slow it down,” Gardner said.
Gardner says the board of supervisors is responsible for 660 miles of county roads and for the most part, many of the major roads have been cleared.
Crews plan on working around the clock to try to keep it that way.
“But as the sun goes down and of course you know how low the temperature gets a lot of the woods spots, particularly around the interstate, are going to glaze back over,” Gardner said.
An area where they’ve had the most calls is along I-269 on the overpasses.
Gardner says the DeSoto County Road Department in conjunction with MDOT crews have been treating the roadways.
Despite treatment, he encourages the public to either drive safely or just stay home.
“We just encourage people to be careful. Our road crews are out doing all they can do our emergency management people are on top of the situation,” Gardner said.
