NES plans phone alerts during extreme weather

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - The Nashville Electric Service (NES) promised to make communication a priority for the next extreme weather event, even pledging to notify residents through their phones.

Thousands of Nashville residents were subject to rolling power blackouts over Christmas weekend. A big group of them showed up at a meeting on Thursday to make sure NES would be better prepared for future outages.

Nashville residents got a chance to voice their concerns and hear from both the Tennessee Valley Authority and NES following the rolling blackouts and extended power outages that took place around the Christmas holiday.

The public meeting was organized by state Rep. John Ray Clemmons, D-Nashville, and Metro Councilmember Joy Styles, who have shared their concerns about infrastructure in Southeast Nashville and the lack of communication with residents.

“We are providing $250 million in our communications system to where we are going to be able to provide push notifications,” Antonio Carroll, NES Government Relations, said. “We will be providing that kind of upgrade coming soon onto our network.”

An arctic blast hit the Southeastern portion of the United States just before Christmas and Tennessee found itself in the middle of it. Extremely cold weather dropped temperatures by more than 50 degrees in just a few hours.

The TVA required all Tennessee counties to cut power intermittently every hour to relieve the state’s power grid that was overworked by Tennesseans trying to stay warm.

Portions of Nashville went without power for hours, others went days with no electricity. Southeast Nashville was hit the hardest.

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