Ring the bell. Friday night brought another round of nasty weather and power outages to Middle Tennessee.
“This is just as bad or worse as the one we just got through,” said Caney Fork general manager Bill Rogers. “This is much more widespread and what’s been damaged is damaged much worse.”
Rogers said power outage estimates are similar as before with probably 8,000 to 9,000 customers without power throughout the entire Caney Fork region at the worst time. He estimated Saturday at noon around 3,000 customers were without electricity.
Rogers described the situation as exhausting, saying Caney Fork employees had just finished working around the clock to restore power to customers from the ice storm that hit Monday. Electricity to all those customers was finally restored late Thursday.
Less than a day later, another ice storm hit Warren County, this one arriving around 5 p.m. Friday. Roads were treacherous by 8 p.m. with a number of motorists experiencing difficulty and requiring wrecker service. The Morford Street hill by High Funeral Home was so slippery, city officials closed the street Friday night around 11 p.m.
Like the first storm, most McMinnville Electric System customers were spared inconvenience. MES general manager and CEO Rodney Boyd said only a handful of customers were without power from Friday’s ice storm.
The state remains at a Level III State of Emergency, according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. TEMA reported Saturday morning there were widespread power outages throughout Middle Tennessee.
TEMA reports there have been 18 confirmed weather-related deaths since the first storm struck Monday, Feb. 16. None of those deaths have been reported in Warren County.
Of the weather-related deaths, TEMA says:
Nine were from hypothermia
Five were from motor vehicle accidents
Three were from fire
One was from a dialysis patient unable to get treatment.
There are currently five emergency shelters operating in Tennessee with 20 occupants, according to TEMA. The Red Cross established an emergency shelter at WCHS for two nights, Tuesday and Wednesday, but closed the shelter when there were no occupants.