Nashville resident without power after ice storm asks electrical utility for answers [bi98sjCD8z4]
Frustrations were bubbling up Friday for the tens of thousands who have been without power for nearly a week in the U.S. South as a new storm looms, including Tennessee's residents in Nashville, where the utility was criticized for storm preparations and recovery. Terry Miles, a 59-year-old construction worker whose home has been without power since Sunday, said he's using a fish fryer for heat and is worried about carbon monoxide. “I’m taking a chance of killing myself and killing my wife, because why?” Miles said after attending a Nashville Electric Service news conference intended to showcase the utility's repairs on poles and lines. He then pointed to officials. “I came up here to speak my mind because I’ve been so cold," he said. "This is the coldest and worst I’ve ever been in my damn life.” Crews have been working by ground and air to restore the lingering outages as another storm is predicted to hit the East Coast, threatening near-hurricane force winds, heavy snow and flooding, while arctic air moves into the Southeast. More than 186,000 homes and businesses were without electricity Friday, with the vast majority of those outages in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said he has shared “strong concerns” with Nashville Electric Service leadership, saying communication and power restoration must improve. In Nashville, where more than 60,000 homes and businesses remain powerless, the city’s electrical service has defended its approach, saying it was an unprecedented storm. A video on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Facebook page shows a worker sitting on the skids of a hovering helicopter so they can repair a giant power structure. Arctic air moving into the Southeast will cause already frigid temperatures to plummet into the teens (minus 10 Celsius) on Friday night in cities like Nashville. Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February and there’s high chance of heavy snow in the Carolinas, Virginia and northeast Georgia this weekend, possibly up to a foot (30 centimeters) in parts of North Carolina. Snow is also possible along the East Coast from Maryland to Maine. On Saturday night and early Sunday, forecasters expect wind and snow that could lead to blizzard conditions before the storm starts to move to sea. Several inches of snow, possibly 1 foot (30.5 centimeters) in some locations, were forecast statewide, particularly in eastern counties. Hundreds of state National Guard soldiers were ready to help. State workers have also been preparing roads. With the wave of dangerous cold heading for the South, experts say the risk of hypothermia heightens for people in parts of Mississippi and Tennessee who are entering their sixth day trapped at home without power in subfreezing temperatures. The arctic cold was expected to plunge as far south as Florida. ▶️ Subscribe to Local 5 on YouTube: Facebook: / weareiowa X: Instagram: / weareiowa 💻 Stream us on WeAreIowa+: 📱 Download the We Are Iowa app: 📩 Get Local 5’s "5 Things to Know" email newsletter in your inbox: #shortsfeed #shortsfeeds #shortsvideos #shortsyoutube #youtube #youtubeshorts #apnews #associatedpress #news #newshorts #newsshorts #topnews #topnewstoday #topnewstv #topnewsstories #winterstorm #winter #nashville #tennessee #snow #ice #winterweather #severeweather #weatherimpacts #poweroutage #poweroutages