Updated Monday, June 26: 

Memphis Light, Gas and Water said Monday morning that it could take days for power to be fully restored following Sunday night’s thunderstorms. 

At 9:45 a.m. Monday, about 100,000 MLGW customers were without power, which is close to 25% of the utility’s customers. The utility will not be disconnecting people for nonpayment Monday, it said. 

The lingering and widespread outages could mean thousands of people have to throw away food that is no longer safe to eat. 

Thousands lost power in Memphis, full restoration not until Wednesday

The Memphis and Shelby County Office of Emergency Management said Monday that food in a refrigerator is safe for up to four hours if the door is closed; food in a full freezer can remain safe for 48 hours and 24 hours if the freezer is half-full. 

Sunday night thunderstorms both knocked out power to tens of thousands of people and impacted Shelby County’s water distribution system. 

The severe weather brought widespread outages to Shelby County. Memphis Light, Gas and Water’s outage map showed more than 116,000 customers without power after 8 p.m. Sunday night though that number has dropped to 100,000 as of early Monday morning. The utility has also asked customers to voluntarily reduce water usage through Monday, June 26, at 5 p.m. 

The utility has about 400,000 customers, meaning that about a quarter of its customers lost power during the storms. The outage map showed the heaviest outages were in northeastern Shelby County in Bartlett and Lakeland. 

Late Sunday evening, the utility reported that Arlington, Cordova and some areas of Northeast Shelby County are experiencing low water pressure due to the storms. 

MLGW also sent its customers a text message Sunday acknowledging the issues and said crews would begin to work on the damage after storms had passed through. 

The utility said wind gusts of up to 75 miles per hour hit the area, causing damage. 

The power outage tracking website, Poweroutage.us, showed that outages weren’t limited to Shelby County.

Utilities in Fayette, Tipton and Hardeman counties also had about a quarter of their customers without power. More than 100,000 utility customers in Arkansas were also without power. 

The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm watch for a broad swath of the Mid-South. It remains in effect until midnight. 

The outages Sunday night followed severe, dayslong outages last week. Those came after severe thunderstorms rolled through the area last weekend.