MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Mid-South had MLGW crews working throughout the night to turn the power back on for more than 2,000 without it.
A powerful storm took down tree limbs and power lines Tuesday, and that caused outages across Shelby County.
At the height of the storm, more than 28,000 people lost power, and WREG learned some of them will have to wait until around noon Friday before MLGW flips the switch.
People without electricity were forced to get creative while they waited for MLGW crews to come to their rescue.
“Like an oven. It’s been real hot,” Tosha Shipp said. “Drinking a lot of fluids, anything cold. Trying to get anywhere there is cool air.”
The only place Shipp and her family found cool air was in their car.
“It says inside it’s 85,” she said pointing to her thermometer in her Parkway Village home.
Shipp’s power went out during Tuesday’s storm when a tree limb fell on a power line.
“The storm wasn’t even bad here, and we just heard something go pow! Then everything shut down,” said Michael Williams, who lives next door to Shipp.
Williams tried to find relief from the heat too, but nothing seemed to work.
“We tried to let the windows up. It helped some but not much,” he said.
MLGW said crews were working as fast as they could, but the restoration process would take some time.
Some neighborhoods had serious damage and required multiple crews.
Dean Brown had electricity, but his elderly neighbors didn’t.
He ran an extension cord from his home across the street.
“A cord from here. It goes across the street, and all the way across the street into their garage,” he said. “They use it to run a fan. Now they got it hooked up just to their refrigerator.”
MLGW said it brought in some crews from Chattanooga and were trying to recruit other utility companies to help.
WREG was told crews would work on the larger outage areas and then finish with the areas affecting the least amount of customers.
