Memphis Light, Gas and Water typically replaces about 600 wooden utility poles every year, on average, but in the past three days, it’s replaced about 350 poles.

At a Thursday, June 29, press conference held near Millington, MLGW President and CEO Doug McGowen said the utility has another 50 poles to go. 

That doesn’t include the number of transformer switches and fuses, which he said “will number in the hundreds,” that MLGW has replaced or will replace due to Sunday’s super cell storms.

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Storms Sunday evening knocked out power for more than a quarter of MLGW’s customers and wreaked havoc on the utility’s system of 150,000 wooden poles. 

McGowen said the extent of damage to utility poles during this storm was unusual. In terms of outages, it was the sixth worst storm in MLGW history — just ahead of Hurricane Katrina. 

In January 2020, the Memphis City Council approved a multi-year rate increase to fund MLGW infrastructure improvements, including pole replacements. When the improvements are completed, the utility estimates they will reduce the time customers spend without power by 50%. 

“We will see significant reliability improvements in the face of storms,” McGowen said. 

During the press conference, McGowen also gave an update on outage restoration efforts.

With more heat advisories for the area in the forecast, he warned the 22,000 customers still without power that outages will likely continue into the weekend. They’ve added more contracted crews every day, bringing the total number to 117. 

“It’s unfortunate,” McGowen said. “But I would be lying if I didn’t say there will be some people that linger into the weekend.”