Power outage leaves thousands without electricity

JACKSON, Tenn. — Many residents in Jackson and Madison County were left without power late Tuesday night.

It was late in the evening when the lights went out for thousands of people around our area. Jackson Energy Authority and Tennessee Valley Authority began working to alleviate the issue.

We were able to speak with Leslie Jones, the VP of Operations for JEA, about the cause of the problem.

“So a storm blew through Jackson and it seems like lightening caused some issues on electric lines,” Jones said.

Many people on the crew left their own homes to go out and fix the outage. Jones tells us what this process looks like.

“So last night we had several breaker operations at some substations,” said Jones. “We immediately knew that it was probably our feed coming in and not something necessarily on our JEA system. TVA control center called into our control center. So they started going through the process of trying to restore the power to everybody.”

JEA has plenty of sources to stay updated in situations like these. You can use your phone to access these options.

“You can always call into our Customer Service Center at 731-422-7500,” Jones said. “You can also check our website and see what’s going on in the outage map. You can also see our social media pages to see what’s going on. We’ll try to keep you updated there.”

There were around 13,000 people affected last night. The power was down for around two hours.

It is always a good idea to keep a flashlight, extra batteries, and a portable phone charger with you for cases like these.

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