(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) (WTVF) — Nashville Electric Service leaders appeared before the Winter Storm Commission. The commission was formed by Mayor Freddie O'Connell after the January 2026 winter storm that left thousands without power for days.
One of those questions focused on fixing outage restoration communication from NES to costumers.
NES CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin explained the system would assume some customer's power was back on when other parts of the circuit were repaired. Then, those costumers would get a notification their power was back when it was not. She understands the frustration from many who were making decisions to check out of hotels and return home when they recieved a text their power was back on, only to return home to find it was still out.
"We discovered there's some blind spots in our AMI communications network. We've been doing an upgrade to that, that was already underway. It was a five-year project to upgrade the network for our advanced metering infrastructure, we've expedited that, it's now a two-year project. We are already making a lot of headway on that."
She explained, at this time, NES is no longer sending notifications when power has been restored.
Commision member Ethan Link pointed it out this storm was deadly. He said it is clear there was a communications failure, and wanted to know if NES was planning to cancel its communication contracts as a result. Alpin did say NES is looking to hire a chief communications position to handle communication plans moving forward.
Almost 90% of damage from the storm was caused by trees, in some cases whole trees falling or exploding. Broyles-Alpin admitted NES fell behind on tree-trimming in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 due to vendor changes and Hurricane Helene. Before the winter storm, she said NES was on track to meet its 2026 fiscal year goal.
"We know that moving to a three-year trim cycle will be more expensive, you are talking about the cost moving from a four to a three, but we think once we get through three years of this modified policy, we can take a fresh look at, what are the results, what kind of reliability differences are we seeing for our customers," she said.
The utility will now budget $25,000 a mile for tree-trimming. Alpin said NES is already seeing outage improvements with their updated trim policy with evidence from the April 16th wind storm.
Commission member Cassandra Easley questioned Alpin on reports people requested special privileges during the storm. She refereed to requests to directly reach Alpin and have power turned on sooner. Alpin framed the requests as looking for more information, not requesting special treatment.
"At no point did I tell anyone to go restore power to this home now, send a crew, get a crew, go take care of that. That didn't happen," she said.
Thusday's meeting was the last public hearing before the commission's deadline to present an initial report to the Mayor and Metro Council in August. The commission has one year to compile its findings into a report with recommendations.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at megan.scarano@newschannel5.com
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