Success Stories for Tennessee
Tornado Damages in Tennessee: Tornado damages were sustained by Gibson Electric Membership Corporation (Gibson Electric) (TN-020), Trenton, Tennessee and Forked Deer Electric Cooperative, Inc. (Fork Deer) (TN-048), Halls, Tennessee, where the storm hit the Northwestern part of the State of Tennessee on April 2, 2006. Based on preliminary reports from the cooperatives, Forked Deer's service area (which covers Dyers County) sustained the worst damage of the two cooperatives by the tornado. It was reported that approximately 23 people lost their lives in the area of Dyers County, but only seven of the 23 were on Forked Deer's system. Forked Deer had around 100 poles down with crews working around the clock to restore service with the assistance of neighboring utilities. Forked Deer still had around 2,000+ still out of service on a 10,000 member system. The tornado in Dyers County created a path of destruction of around a half-mile wide and 20-25 miles long. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed. The manager anticipated everyone should be back on by the end of this week, if not sooner.
Gibson Electric has estimated that they had around 250 poles down with three F-3 tornadoes on their system causing destruction from Dyer County east through Gibson County. Poles, transformers, and conductors were all on the ground after the April 2nd event. Gibson Electric's disaster recovery plan worked well with everyone performing their part and with no lost time accidents. It is important that all who helped go home without injury.
May 2006