With many still struggling to stay warm during this deadly winter storm, many Nashvillians are drawing comparisons to the historic 1994 storm that left many without power for weeks on end.
“I ain’t never seen nothing like this since about ’94. Didn’t have no lights for about eight days,” said Marcellus Bostack, of North Nashville. On a recent morning, he was on his way to check on his 90-year-old uncle; both of them had lost power during this storm as well.
This go around, nearly half of Nashville Electric Service’s customer base lost power on Sunday afternoon. The company tracked a record 230,000 simultaneous outages, exceeding the previous high set in 2020, and tens of thousands are at risk of having no electricity for a week or more.
“The last significant ice storm like this was in 1994 … It’s been several years since something like this has happened in the wintertime at this magnitude,” said NES vice president and chief operations and innovation officer Brent Baker.
Power outages caused by the 1994 ice storm were front page news.
Local resident Carlotta McKee says she vividly remembers how destructive that storm was.
“I was here for ’94. I thought we were being bombed cause all the transformers were blowing up. I thought we were being bombed cause all the transformers were blowing up. I was living in Inglewood at that time. And some people in my neighborhood didn’t have any power for two weeks.”
A lot has changed since 1994 — especially when it comes to technology. Then, there were no text alerts, no social media updates and no online power outage maps. (There was, of course, radio.) And today, Nashville is more prepared for winter weather than in 1994. The city purchased additional snowplows, and brined streets ahead of time.
McKee said she was more prepared this time as well.
“I have water and I’ve got a lot of food and, praise God, I have a gas stove. And I have a wood burning fireplace, so I’ve brought lots of wood in the house,” she said.
More: Updates: Tennessee ramps up welfare checks amid deadly winter storm
While the city may have been more prepared for winter weather than it was in 1994, this storm seems to have brought even more ice, and the length of the recovery is worrying residents and officials.
“We’ve reached the stage of recovery where asking for patience is hard … Every moment that it is not on, including overnight, it is frustrating to scary,” Mayor Freddie O’Connell said Wednesday “This is a once-in-a-generation storm.”
More than 100,000 people across the state were still without power on Wednesday, and temperatures remain dangerously cold. Leaders have ramped up their welfare checks — and are urging people to check on their family, friends and neighbors.
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