'Scary and unnerving': Shelby County copes with lack of power, property damage after storm

Around 6 a.m. Thursday, Sonja Sanes heard a bang. 

"It sounded like somebody hit the house," she said. 

When she went to investigate, she found a tree branch had broken off due to the ice storm and impaled the roof of her East Memphis home. She lost power around 4 p.m. Thursday, and at some point a massive tree came down in her front yard, smashing a portion of her brick and metal fence. 

Throughout the day Friday, Memphis-area residents like Sanes continued to grapple with the aftermath of an ice storm that caused widespread power outages and property damage.

Across the city and the suburbs, ice-laden tree branches had snapped off trunks, blocking roads and sidewalks and damaging cars, homes and other buildings. Downed power poles and power lines littered neighborhoods across the city.

As of 2 p.m. Friday, 128,518 customers remained without power, according to Memphis Light, Gas and Water. At points on Thursday, more than 3,000 separate power outages were impacting about 140,000 MLGW customers. As "customer" refers to the address served, the number of individuals impacted was much higher.  

As of 11 a.m. Friday, Sanes was still without power as several MLGW crews worked on the downed lines at the corner of Mendenhall and Walnut Grove roads. Half of her family members who live in the Memphis area were without power and many of them had gone to hotels. 

"But I heard there aren't any more hotel rooms left," she said. 

Sanes said she plans to stay with her son until power is restored at her home.  

As of Friday morning, more than 30% of MLGW customers were still without power and the situation remained critical, MLGW CEO J.T. Young said Friday morning. 

"Unfortunately I don't have good news as to a quick restoration... It's going to be several days," he said during a news conference. 

MLGW OUTAGES:When will power be restored in Memphis? 'It is going to be several days,' MLGW says

Below-freezing temperatures and a single-digit wind chill will allow the ice to persist into Friday night and Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service Memphis office. 

Storm reports submitted to the NWS show downed trees across the metro area and accumulations of freezing rain from 0.19 inches in Collierville to a quarter-inch in Olive Branch and a half-inch in Horseshoe Lake.

Across town, massive ice-coated tree branches and other foliage that had fallen made some streets nearly impassible. Just up the block from Sanes, crews were working with chainsaws to dismantle a tree that had fallen and was blocking an entire side street.

In Midtown, heavy ice had felled part of Overton Park's largest trees and toppled power poles. An entire tree on Cooper Street near Overton Square had been uprooted and took part of the sidewalk with it. 

Power seemed intermittent. On some streets, every other stoplight was working. One side of the street was lit up while the opposite side sat dark. 

Raleigh resident Lorne Green lost power Thursday afternoon. The rest of his subdivision was also without electricity after a fallen tree took out a power line. 

Family members have offered Green space at their homes, but he has opted to remain at his home to take care of his five dogs. They've been keeping as warm as possible in his insulated garage.

“It was very scary,” Green said about not having power. “It hasn’t been this long before.”

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In the suburbs

The smell of fresh pine trees began to fill the air Thursday evening in the Aronson family's Germantown home, but not from an air freshener.

"The branches just couldn't handle the ice I guess and a tree came down on the house and my car all while our power was out," Penny Aronson said.

Aronson, like hundreds of residents in East Germantown along Poplar Pike and in the Oakleigh neighborhood, had remained without power for more than 24 hours as tree branches around houses and roads snapped off and fell.

On Friday, frozen tree branches littered Germantown streets including Forest Hill Irene Road and Farmington Road as Public Works crews tried to clear areas as fast as they could.

Intersections like Poplar Pike and Forest Hill Irene had stop signs as traffic signals were still down.

"Tree branches are still falling, like we hear the cracking," Aronson said.

During the night, Aronson huddled with her husband and 11-year-old son on the ground floor of her home with the generator roaring, adding some heat. 

"I'm privileged to have a generator because I know some people don't have that, but this whole thing was just unnerving," she said. 

"It is just scary and unnerving."

She hopes her power will come back on soon, but for the meantime, her home has no internet or hot water. She plans to stop at a nearby gym to shower and work at a coffee shop or library.

 "I don't know when my power will come back on, and I'm worried it could take like two weeks," she said.

Aronson's concerns were similar to those of Lesley Takao, another Germantown resident in the Poplar Pike area, who has not had power since 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

"We have been using the generator since yesterday morning, and it is powering an electric kettle, ability to charge phones and a heater," Takao said.

"We don't have hot water so we have booked a hotel for tonight that we can get into after 3 p.m. to have showers."

Takao also stayed in one room of her house with her husband and daughter to stay warm, but she was grateful for the generator and that the situation was not worse.

"I am more concerned for the elderly and people who don't have that ability," she said. 

She also worries her pool pipes will freeze and burst.

As of 1:30 p.m. Friday, Takao said MLGW estimated her power could be restored around 3:30 p.m. She was hopeful her family would not have to stay in a hotel. 

Germantown had thousands of residents without power Friday afternoon, according to the MLGW power outage map, as crews continued to work across the city.

For now, the Germantown Community Library, 1925 Exeter Road, welcomes anyone in need of warmth and internet.

College students also without power

Also without power Friday was Payton Gleason, a 21-year-old senior coaching sciences major and track athlete at the University of Memphis. Originally from Rochester, New York, he currently lives in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood, south of Park Avenue, and said he lost power at his house around 11 a.m. Thursday and it had yet to be restored by late Friday afternoon.

“My power went out around 11 a.m. yesterday, but I ended up leaving my house around 3 p.m.,” he said. “By then it was really cold. I had already planned to run at 3:30 with my teammates, so at that point I just kind of packed for the night and knew that I was just going to run and shower [at my teammates’ house], because I didn't want to shower in the pitch black and then stay there overnight."

That run gave Gleason his first look at what other areas of Memphis were going through. Over the ensuing 75 minutes, and 10 miles, the group encountered fallen trees, branches and street signs. 

“The run was just a completely different experience,” he said. “We ran through a bunch of neighborhoods, and this was at the point where trees [and branches] were still kind of falling. So we would see trees falling on rooftops, we saw some trees hit some power lines, we saw a bunch of road signs down, stop lights were out too. Then we got up onto the Green Line and that was probably not the best choice because there were five or six different large trees that went down, blocking the path. So you'd have to kind of maneuver over them before going again. And there were a couple of gated neighborhoods that we ran by and the gates to get into their neighborhoods were either smashed or bent open.”

Gleason and his teammates decided it would be easiest to shower at Centennial Place, one of the dormitories at the U of M campus. When he got there, he found it slightly busier than an average day, but he was greeted with a warning from the front desk.

“The people at the front desk told me to be careful with the showers,” he said. “The water pressure is way down and something like 80% of their showers aren't working. It's very hit or miss if you're going to get one and, if you do get one, the water pressure is really not there. You can shower and everything, but it's not gonna be a comfortable shower.”

Although having difficulties with water pressure at Centennial Place, the U of M campus had working electricity. Even though the majority of campus was closed, including classrooms and most restaurants, stations from the cafeteria — known as the Tiger Den — had been moved to the University Center for students with meal plans to access food. 

Gleason ultimately landed at his teammates’ house, bringing the total number of temporary residents to 11 U of M students. His house has not had power fully restored yet, though he said he received a text from MLGW at 3:42 a.m. saying power had been brought back. 

“When I finished my run this morning, I went back to use the shower and everything was still out,” Gleason said. “But I think that it was on at one point because the house was warm. I went back to kind of grab some things around 8 or 9 p.m. last night and it was just freezing. It was bad. So when I got back today, it was definitely at least 20 degrees warmer in the house. So I know that for at least some point in time it worked, but I never was there for it.”

Commercial Appeal reporter Samuel Hardiman contributed to this report. 

Corinne S Kennedy covers economic development and healthcare for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached via email at Corinne.Kennedy@CommercialAppeal.com