Memphis Mayor Paul Young and the head of Memphis Light, Gas and Water Doug McGowen are offering some hope — but also some warnings — as the city braces for a winter storm that’s already drawing comparisons to the ice storm of 1994 that crippled the city for weeks.

The 2026 winter storm is expected to arrive late Friday, Jan. 23.

“Right now it looks like it’s not going to be as severe as it was in ’94,” McGowen said at a Friday morning briefing at the city’s emergency-management headquarters. “But things could change south of us where it’s looking every bit as severe as it was in 1994.”

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Young urged Memphians to ride out the winter blast at home. The city also has a network of community centers and shelters for those who need to leave their homes or who are homeless.

“We don’t know exactly how it’s going to unfold, but the potential demands preparation. And we want our community to be very cautious,” Young said. “Ice accumulation is our greatest concern at this moment.

“Stay off the roads unless you have to get out.”

Memphis Public Works Division Director Scott Morgan said the city has 2,000 tons of road salt and 16 trucks to distribute it onto street that were pretreated earlier this week. If temperatures dip below 15 degrees, salt may be less effective.

MLGW had 50 crews for overhead power-line repairs on standby in addition to the 39 crews that were prepositioned early Friday.

The first in a series of changing forecasts this week prompted some larger-than-normal crowds at grocery stores and some empty shelves as a result.

“We want people to stay at home and to have the ability to, so I’m glad that they’re getting the resources that they need,” Young said about the reaction. “I’ve been in communication with some of the executives at Kroger. They have reiterated to me that they have warehouses full of supplies and they’re going to be able to get all the things that they need.”

Ice is the ‘primary threat’ to power grid

The concern that causes McGowen and Young to say Memphians should be prepared for the worst and hope for the best is the threat of ice to the MLGW distribution system.

McGowen called ice on power lines the “primary threat” to the grid.

“We are forecast to have between (0.25-0.5 inches) of ice. Customers should expect some power outages with that amount of ice because it will weigh the power lines and the trees down,” he said. “We are on the cusp of more than half an inch of ice. Should the front move slightly northward, we could accumulate more than half an inch, and that’s when you should expect widespread power outages.”

The possibility has already made an MLGW graphic of how much half an inch of ice weighs on power lines an early contender for an enduring symbol of the coming storm. McGowen estimates half an inch of ice can add 500 pounds to power lines.

The utility’s water system is endangered by how long the cold temperatures could persist in areas where power outages occur.

“On the water side, persistent cold temperatures and lack of electricity can affect our ability to effectively pump water through those water mains and also prevalent cold temperatures will cause residential and commercial customers pipes to freeze,” he said.

“While we might have plenty of water, the pressure drops to the point where we can’t distribute it,” he said. “So it’s important for people to ... not just prepare for but expect there to be some impacts to your electric availability. Expect that there could be some disruptions to your normal water supply.”

““So it’s important for people to ... not just prepare for but expect there to be some impacts to your electric availability. Expect that there could be some disruptions to your normal water supply.””

Doug McGowen
MLGW

Earlier this week, MLGW tree-trimming crews working in utility right-of-ways were part of the earliest storm preparations.

“They’ve been out combing the city looking for things that are at risk, limbs that look like they might have been damaged, limbs that are overhanging,” McGowen said. “That’s the first time we’ve done that, and so we think that’s going to be helpful as well.”

McGowen put the utility on an aggressive three-year cycle for trimming trees in rights-of-way since becoming head of MLGW three years ago.

“But the risk here is entire trees coming down, which is obviously a larger risk,” he said Friday.

Private tree-trimming companies were out and about in Memphis on Friday as well as homeowners sought out the services to avoid downed trees and damaging limbs.

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Meanwhile, the utility’s distribution system is in better shape and supplies of electric power from the Tennessee Valley Authority more ample than in 2021 and 2022 when memorable winter storms prompted the city’s first-ever boil-water advisory caused by a drop in water pressure and rolling electric-power blackouts.

“There was a heck of a lot of lessons learned during that period of time — most of it around planning, forecasting and actually behaviors of customers during very cold temperatures, which were a little unusual during that period of time,” said McGowen, who came to MLGW from being the city’s COO. “We have much better forecasting models now, much better preparedness.”

The boil-water advisory returned the next year with another winter storm that dropped temperatures below zero.

Some TVA plants have been winterized and insulated since then to prevent blowing snow and sleet from getting into unprotected areas.

TVA is producing 2,000 more megawatts of power than it was four years ago, McGowen said. “That’s in a system that produces 35,000 megawatts of power,” he said. “So it’s a substantial increase.”

The utility also has three natural-gas pipelines and guaranteed contracts for delivery of gas as well as natural reserves and water-pumping stations with aging infrastructure decades past its replacement date that froze over in 2021 that have since been improved dramatically.