MSCS closes all campuses Monday due to storm-related power outages
A teacher leaves Snowden Elementary School Sept. 12, 2024 after getting let out for inclement weather. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian file)
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All Memphis-Shelby County Schools campuses will close Monday, Aug. 24, due to lingering power outages caused by a destructive weekend storm.
Officials announced the district-wide closure at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
Many school buildings have power.
But more than 40 school and administrative campuses remained without power Sunday evening, MSCS officials said. The district said earlier Sunday it was monitoring HVAC conditions across the district.
The district’s 50 independently-operated charter schools make their own decisions about campus closures or delays.
About 18% of Memphis Light, Gas and Water customers remained without power Sunday at 6:30 p.m., totaling over 76,000 residences and businesses.
Saturday evening’s “bow echo” storm intensified suddenly over Memphis, officials have said. The storm’s winds, estimated between 60 and 80 miles per hour, snapped trees and downed power lines.
That left about 140,000 MLGW customers without power at the peak of reported outages, MLGW CEO Doug McGowen told reporters Sunday afternoon.
The storm “wreaked havoc” on the city, he said, setting a record for the seventh-most outage minutes in the utility’s history. Additional crews are expected to restore power to all customers by Thursday evening, he said.
Some 39 schools across the county remained without power, McGown said then, including five private schools. It was not immediately clear how many of the 34 schools were MSCS-run schools, or how many total schools lost power over the weekend.
Collierville Schools delay start times
Collierville Schools will have a two-hour delay after storms swept through the Mid-South Saturday evening, leaving thousands of residents without power.
Collierville High School students will report to school at 9:30 a.m. Both middle schools will start at 10:15 a.m. and the elementary schools will begin at 11 a.m. Dismissal will occur at the regularly scheduled times.
Houston Middle School’s power was restored by Sunday evening, so Germantown Municipal School District students will follow a regular schedule.
Arlington, Bartlett, Lakeland and Millington said their campuses had power, and school would have a normal schedule Monday.
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Collierville Schools August 2026 storm inclement weather Memphis Shelby County SchoolsAbigail Warren
Abigail Warren is an award-winning reporter and covers Collierville and Germantown for The Daily Memphian. She was raised in the Memphis suburbs, attended Westminster Academy and studied journalism at the University of Memphis. She has been with The Daily Memphian since 2018.
Laura Testino
Laura Testino is an enterprise reporter on The Daily Memphian’s metro team who writes most often about how education policies shape the lives of children and families. She regularly contributes to coverage of breaking news events and actions of the Tennessee General Assembly. Testino’s journalism career in Memphis began six years ago at The Commercial Appeal, where she began chronicling learning disruptions associated with the pandemic, and continued with Chalkbeat, where she dug into education administration in Memphis. Her reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The Times-Picayune, The Tuscaloosa News and USA Today. Reach Laura with questions, story ideas or tips: Ltestino@dailymemphian.com or Ldtestino.54 on Signal.
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