Memphis neighborhoods still in the dark after last night’s storms

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — MLGW crews have been hard at work trying to get the lights back on for thousands of people who are still without power after Thursday night’s severe weather. More than 4,000 customers are still in the dark hours after the storms rolled through, leaving people in the Chickasaw Gardens neighborhood sweating it out on one of the hottest and most humid weeks of the year. “Yea, it’s just a bad time to be without power,” said resident Ellis Keplinger. He was outside when he says the weather seemed to change in an instant. “Crazy stuff started happening, like all the trees were whipping around from east to west, which is always a bad sign,” he said, “then all of a sudden it was just like somebody snapped and the power went out.” Around the corner on South Greer Street, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do, and people are scrambling to save what they can. “We’re taking all the food out, moving it to a refrigerator that’s working, trying not to – we just went to the grocery store yesterday – so we’re trying not to lose all that,” Keplinger said. The entire block is a mess, from a massive tree that was completely uprooted in someone’s front yard right along with a big chunk of sidewalk, to power poles snapped in half like toothpicks and power lines hanging down to the ground everywhere you turn. Darryl Torrell heard his neighbor’s tree come down, but thought it was just lightening. “Basically a very large flash of light and the sonic boom, pretty much, and about five minutes later everything further down the road was flashing and power lines were falling down one at a time,” he said. “We had some neighbors, they had a tree fall on their house, so they’re a lot worse off than we are,” Keplinger said. At one point, nearly 10,000 MLGW customers were without power. In Chickasaw Gardens, people say were told they’d have power back early Friday morning, but that didn’t happen. They say they’re just thankful everyone’s OK. “I’m prepared not to have power and just play acoustic guitar,” Torrell said. There’s a chance for more scattered thunderstorms into the weekend, which could bring more severe weather.