• MLGW lifts boil water advisory
• Non-essential water use allowed again
• Most Memphis suburbs avoid boil water order from deep freeze
• Jennifer Biggs: “How about some sound infrastructure?”
• For more updates click here.

Memphis Light, Gas and Water President Doug McGowen will share updates on rolling blackouts and the water boil advisory at a noon press conference.

The founder of Memphis' Constance Abbey ministry to the homeless died early Saturday, Dec. 24, of injuries sustained in a biking accident near San Francisco.

It’s Christmas Eve and blackouts are back, and lasting longer than expected. And they’re in areas that weren’t expecting to be affected. 

Northcentral Electric Cooperative has canceled the temporary outages that will affect DeSoto and Marshall counties.

Memphis Light, Gas & Water has issued a boil water advisory for parts of Southeast Memphis, Germantown and Millington. And, after the TVA issued a Step 50 curtailment Saturday morning, MLGW began rolling blackouts with areas north of Downtown, near the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library and North Germantown. 

The TVA faces outages at two of its coal-fired plants and some of its natural gas plants, according to spokesperson Scott Brooks. 

MLGW said Friday evening that it was preparing for the possibility of TVA requiring its customers to cut power load by at least 5%.

In the hour before MPD’s inclement weather policy was issued, police responded to 43 crashes. There were 23 crashes in the following hour, and 22 the next. 

A warming shelter has opened in DeSoto County due to extreme cold, and Northcentral Electric Cooperative has canceled rolling blackouts.

During a noon press conference, Memphis Light, Gas & Water president and CEO Doug McGowen announced that MLGW will not be doing any rolling blackouts. 

Watch the press conference now.

Beginning at 11:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 23, MLGW will implement systemwide “rolling blackouts.” 

Bill Lee grants clemency, a bid to recognize the 1917 Ell Persons lynching site moves ahead and Young Dolph is honored in a pop-up museum. 

In some areas of West Tennessee, water is being pumped from the Memphis Sand Aquifer more quickly than it’s being replenished by rainfall. 

Here are the links to report outages, find shelter and get rides if you have to get out in the dangerous temperatures that aren’t expect to crack 20 degrees until late Saturday morning. 

The lynching site that drew a crowd of 5,000 in 1917 is now an overgrown area by the Wolf River west of Summer Avenue.

The governor also made 30 people eligible for parole who were sentenced before a reformed Drug-Free School Zone law was passed in 2020.

As Ya Ya and Le Le prepare to return home to China in the coming months, Memphis Zoo officials are preparing to make an official bid for a new mating pair of pandas. 

Related story:

Leaders, residents say goodbye to giant pandas

CBU’s behavioral sciences department will house the new program, which is the department’s first graduate-level degree offering.

Memphis is experiencing a drug shortage, the Tigers easily take Alabama and Olive Branch gets its first RV park.

Since taking office Sept. 1, District Attorney Steve Mulroy has pushed criminal justice reforms with the formation of the Justice Review Unit and expansion of the office’s restorative justice program — and he’s not done yet. 

“(It will be) too cold to be outside for long periods of time,” said a NWS meteorologist. “And, in addition to that, we do have our winds that are going to be gusting up to 40 miles per hour.”

“It is absolutely wonderful,” said Joyce Douglas, manager of the district’s MWSBE program. “We are truly grateful to be recognized for our efforts to help women and minorities do business with Memphis-Shelby County Schools.”

Though dangerously cold wind chills are predicted for the Memphis area, MLGW doesn’t expect widespread power outages. But McGowen is keeping a focus on the local water system.