Patience and cooperation among lessons learned from the ice storm of 1994

Although 10 years have passed, the ice storm of February 1994 still sends shivers down the spines of those who endured living without electricity for up to two weeks.

During those dark winter days and nights, Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation workers pulled double shifts and were seen as heroes by many and scoundrels by a few who thought preferential treatment was being given to anyone whose power was restored before their own. One CEMC worker was physically assaulted in the field by an agitated customer who could not or would not understand that, in restoring power after an outage of this magnitude, crews have to start at the substation and work out from that point. As a result of that incident, district offices were staffed with security officers to ward off trouble.

The storm began as an innocent, mid-winter rain began falling across Tennessee during the night of Thursday, Feb. 10. But dropping temperatures did not bring snow, which would have been much easier to handle. Instead, the water began to freeze on everything it touched, leaving behind a beautiful, horrible mess. Tree limbs were everywhere. More than 600 poles were down or broken and had to be replaced. And just about the only lights to be seen in rural neighborhoods were vehicle headlights.

On Friday morning, 88 percent of CEMC’s nearly 59,000 members were without electricity, including all of those served by the Springfield and Ashland City district offices. Then-General Manager Wayne Poole called it “the worst day” of his career, and Gov. Ned McWherter responded by declaring a state of emergency. The storm caused $84.6 million in damages statewide, with 68 counties on a list of major disaster areas, including all of the counties served by CEMC.

According to our records, more than 100 crews from other parts of Tennessee and surrounding states came and helped us restore service to our members. Even the 101^st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell provided a helicopter to help us assess power line damage across the system.

If you lived in this area 10 years ago, you surely have your own memories of the hardships and tribulations of the time. These are the reminiscences of current CEMC employees who will never forget the ice storm of 1994.

Then, as now, John Bell was a lineman in the Clarksville District.

“I was on call the night the storm hit,” Bell said. I remember there was no drastic drop in temperature. It was real subtle, not even very cold. A few days later it turned 50-55 degrees and people were working just in long sleeve shirts, some in tee shirts.”

Bell has worked on crews cleaning up from tornadoes and hurricanes, neither of which, he says, compare to a major ice storm in terms of the damage caused. “Ice may be the worst of all if it’s system-wide. Wind picks and chooses where it causes damage, ice doesn’t,” he said.

For Bell and many other linemen, frustration was a constant companion as they worked to restore service.            “It seems like as soon as we’d get a line back up, something else would fall on it and knock it right back down. Or, we would think we had a line ready to go hot and we’d find out it would be down somewhere else,” he said.

Gerry Hester was a working foreman in Springfield. “My most vivid memory is, we were out on a call in Orlinda and the weather just kept getting worse and worse. It took us four hours to get back to Springfield. We had seen a weather report and we knew it was bad and getting worse. Everything was breaking and popping-it wasn’t safe to be out in it. A tree limb fell and hit (co-worker) Tom Farmer’s truck. We didn’t slow down for about three weeks, working 16-17 hour days. I had a wood burning stove at home and everybody in the community was at my house keeping warm. We hung in there pretty good,” Hester said.

Hester, who now is supervisor of the co-op’s right-of-way workers, says CEMC more than doubled its tree trimming budget after the storm. Of the several different types of disasters he has worked through, Hester agrees with Bell that an ice storm is worst because of the working conditions.“It’s worse than tornadoes and hurricanes. I wouldn’t care if we didn’t have another one!” Hester said.

Nancy Farmer, a customer account representative in the Ashland City District, worked part-time for CEMC. “The day the storm came, I went to work and stayed all day and most of the night for two weeks. I never did go back to part-time. So something good came out of the ice storm for me,” Farmer said. Still, Farmer says she hopes that was the last ice storm for this area.

“It’s sad to see customers without electricity and sad to see CEMC employees without electricity. Everyone at CEMC worked very hard and pulled together to get the lights back on and help our customers as much as possible,” Farmer said.

Lynda Hicklen, a customer account representative in the Dover District, also remembers the good that came out of a bad situation. “My recollections are of the tremendous support we received from the people in our community. We had numerous people stopping by each day to bring food, to offer their assistance in any way, or sometimes just to give words of encouragement and thanks. Also, we received numerous calls and cards for weeks after the ordeal from people who were grateful for the job our guys had done.

“And I cannot forget the dedication, stamina and perseverance our guys exhibited to the very end. They all knew they had a job to do and they went that extra mile (literally),” Hicklen said.

Charlie Simpkins, now district manager in Ashland City, remembers how people worked together to repair the system. “What amazed me the most was the cooperation from the public and the men here at CEMC who worked so well together. As far as I can remember, I don’t think we had anyone hurt bad considering all the people we had working over the system restoring power,” Simpkins said. In Ashland City, employees’ wives prepared hot meals for those working outside and also did the laundry of visiting crewmembers.       

 Thanks to this spirit of cooperation, the CEMC system, employees and members survived the storm and should be better prepared, based on experience, if another ice storm comes this way.
 

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