Memphis Light, Gas and Water has restored power to 137,500 customers out of the 140,000 impacted by the weekend storm, MLGW President and CEO Doug McGowen said at an Aug. 27 press conference.
There were still 2,500 customers without power, but MLGW believes that number will come down to 1,500 by 11 p.m. on Thursday evening.
There are still 107 crews working until power is restored to 100% of customers, he said.
MLGW cannot restore power to several hundred customers because their homes were damaged, he said. If your home experienced damage to its meter center or weatherhead, for example, you will need an electrician to make a repair before MLGW reconnects power.
McGowen said the City of Memphis, MLGW and Shelby County will be asking the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to provide around $18 million in reimbursement for storm damage and advised homeowners to look out for information coming from Memphis and the Office of Emergency Management.
McGowen said the outages could have been much worse if MLGW had not improved infrastructure over the last three years.
"If we had not done the infrastructure investment, replacing poles, replacing outdated equipment, if we had not done the aggressive tree trimming that we had done, we would have had well north of 200,000 customers out with this storm," he said. "It was limited to 140,000. I know that's a lot; that's a significantly different storm to respond to than one that has more than 200,000 customers."
Jack Armstrong covers breaking news and the environment for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at jack.armstrong@commercialappeal.com and followed on X @jca2902.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: MLGW says most customers back online, federal money being requested
