MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - It has been one year since rising water on the Mississippi River flooded streets and homes. The river climbed to more than 48 feet, the highest flood stage since 1937.
In April 2011, the Mid-South dealt with several rounds of storms that left most of Shelby County in the dark. It wasn't only a record-breaking spring for the entire Mid-South, but Memphis Light Gas and Water set their own records in number of outages.
Glen Thomas, Communication Supervisor for MLGW, says, "Previously, we had never had a year in which we had more than 2 outages that affected more than 50,000 customers."
Last year, MLGW had five events that knocked out power to more than 50,000 customers. On April 4, 2011, severe weather put 71,000 MLGW customers in the dark, resulting in the fifth worst storm in terms of damage in MLGW's history. Another wave of bad weather on April 19, 2011 meant lights out for 64,000 customers.
"We were tired of Mother Nature by the time May rolled around," says Thomas.
MLGW played a complimentary role during the May flood, helping to assist the Shelby County Emergency Management Agency and FEMA with recovery efforts.
Glen Thomas says, "We had so many employees working around the clock for about 2 months time and we learn from every one of those incidents and hopefully we've made our system stronger in the meantime."
