MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The Mid-South may be in the middle of a heat wave, but those with Memphis, Light, Gas & Water are also finalizing improvements to keep the power on for more customers ahead of the next winter storm.
Thursday morning marked the final meeting of MLGW's Outage Improvement Advisory Team. It formed in February after the utility's highly criticized ice storm response, where more than half of all customers were impacted at some point.
From the committee's work, MLGW plans to place aging lines and do more tree trimming for 70,000 customers most prone to winter outages that are mainly within the I-240 loop.
MLGW is also upgrading its communication to customers to better pinpoint how long outages will last.
"We are always going to have outages. The question really is what is the duration?" MLGW President & CEO J.T. Young said. "We know that customers are more dependent on their power today then they were five years ago or even a year ago. And so we are going to work diligently to make sure that we minimize the duration and frequency of those outages - and that's really what this team has helped us understand."
MLGW will hold additional forums and update customers with quarterly updates known as 'Power Hours'. The utility is also in the second year of a five-year overall infrastructure plan to replace aging equipment.