By Shannon McFarlin News Director
Paris, Tenn.–As of 4 a.m. this morning, power was restored to all customers of the Paris Board of Public Utilities after a long hard night for over 2,000 customers and BPU workers alike.
Tuesday night’s severe storm knocked out a transmission line feeding all of the Henry and McKenzie portion of Henry County, knocking them out of service.
Board of Public Utilities CEO Terry Wimberley told us this morning that the crews encountered challenges in restoring power. “First of all, finding the line that was out was a challenge and second, getting there was rough.”
The transmission pole was on a cross country line and was located back in a field and with the strong winds and muddy fields, Wimberley said, it was difficult. “Getting men, materials, and equipment to the location has been more than challenging,” he said.
High winds resulted in a number of trees falling on power lines, too. There was a lengthy list of downed wires and broken poles, he said, causing all available crews to be at work in multiple parts of the county.
At its peak, some 2,500 customers were without power. Some 1,500 of those were in the Henry-McKenzie area, while others were scattered all over the county. “We had trees down, poles down” and crews had to focus on getting the power restored safely, he said.
Wimberley thanked customers for the patience through the hours-long outages. “Some times it’s harder than others” to restore power in such a circumstances “and last night was one of those nights,” he said.
BPU photo.