TOP PHOTO: “We had several broken poles,” said Kenny Baird. The LUB General Manager is referencing what LUB customers and crews faced during Saturday and Saturday night’s wind storms that forced thousands of power outages.

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – It’s been a long 24 hours for crews with the La Follette Utility Board (LUB). For the second time in less than a month, the LUB service area has been ravaged by wind driven damaging storms knocking out power to thousands of LUB customers. “We had less customers out in this latest storm. However, the problems were more difficult to fix due to the sustained winds,” said LUB General Manager Kenny Baird.

Baird goes on to say that the winds died down quicker after the March storm. “They blew until after dark Saturday, and we had several broken poles,” said Baird.

As of 11am Sunday, 35 customers were still without power compared to nearly 3,000 at the height of the wind event on Saturday afternoon. Baird expects all of LUB’s customers to have their power restored by late this afternoon barring any unforeseen circumstances.

Strong wind gusts have since let up. Beginning late Sunday night, more strong wind gusts are forecast to develop. At this stage, it appears wind gusts will be less than 45 miles per hour from late Sunday night through early Wednesday with sustained winds under 15 MPH. Sustained winds on Saturday were in the range of 20-30 MPH with gusts near 60 MPH. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 04/02/2023-11AM)

One Reply to “LUB customers without power drop from thousands to a handful”

  1. Our electric department is awesome! It bothers me to the core when I hear people complain about them.

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