Germantown residents are dealing with the aftermath of a Sunday evening storm that knocked power out for 35,000 Memphis Light, Gas and Water customers at its peak.  

The late-night storm was the second to rumble through part of the suburb. Earlier on Sunday, July 2, a quick-moving cell brought heavy rains, winds and hail to the Poplar Pike corridor in Germantown around the Oakleigh subdivision.

That left debris and broken limbs throughout the area. Then, a second round hit around 11 p.m. knocking out power and darkening parts of the suburb, except for the bolts of lightning illuminating the rain and wind damage.

‘It’s frustrating; we get it:’ MLGW crews will work through weekend

On Monday, July 3, one Germantown homeowner sat in a chair in her driveway just off of Kilbirnie Drive looking at the wreckage of an oak tree that crashed through the second story of her home. Across the street at James Gruggett’s home, crews downed a damaged hickory tree just before noon. 

Gruggett has lived on the street for more than 20 years. He returned to the U.S. with his wife after an eight-year stint in Germany, her home country, and the frequency of power outages jumped out to them. 

“It makes you wonder: Are they not investing in the infrastructure?” he said. 

A week ago, on Sunday, June 25, a round of storms left more than 122,000 MLGW customers — a quarter of all customers — without power. The past week was an all-out effort for MLGW to bring those numbers down, and by the end of last week, crews had restored power to all but 600 customers.

But another weekend storm left crews with more downed trees and power lines to address.

MLGW said in a statement that customers who have been without power since June 25 remain a top priority, but crews are working across the service area to restore power to all 14,000 customers still without power early Monday afternoon. 

Like last week’s storms, toppled trees are the main culprit, according to MLGW. The utility’s board has approved a $200 million, five-year contract to get back on a three-year tree trimming cycle. As of June 7 — nearly halfway through the year — MLGW was about 5% of the way toward its annual goal. 

MLGW will request approval for the contract at the next Memphis City Council meeting. 

“I don’t want customers to lose hope,” MLGW President and CEO Doug McGowen said in a statement Monday. “It is going to get better; the system is going to be more resilient.” 

The Germantown area avoided widespread outages last week but was ravaged by an F-3 tornado on Thanksgiving weekend of 1994, a storm that left three people in one family dead inside a home on Gotten Way. There were dozens of homes damaged by the storm on the south side of Wolf River Boulevard.

Houston High suffered damage, too, leading to the then-Shelby County school system splitting class days at Germantown High; Germantown students went to classes part of the day, and Houston High students used the campus during the other times.

The National Weather Service of Memphis expects more scattered thunderstorms into Monday evening with highs in the mid-90s, compared to last week’s weather, which left people without power in triple-digit temperatures.