NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Nashville Electric Service (NES) announced power has been restored after 72,000 customers lost power during Middle Tennessee’s historic weather event. 

While customers experienced different outage times, one Goodlettsville resident said it took more than 60 hours for his power to be restored. 

“Honestly, I was looking forward to the snow and having a white Christmas, until of course my power went out here and we’ve been dealing with that since then,” Goodlettsville resident John Jessee said.  

Jessee was home with his boyfriend and dogs and planned to host a Christmas gathering; however, Mother Nature had other plans. 

“It started at 4 a.m. Friday night and honestly, we woke up, and we kind of just thought it would pass, like we just spent the morning cuddled up under blankets thinking it would turn back on at some point and it lasted for the next three days.” 

Jessee said hundreds of dollars worth of holiday food went to waste and things got so cold, he ended up paying $150 to stay at a hotel with his dogs. In addition to these expenses, Jessee said he couldn’t get a timeline for when power would be restored or a reason why his home was one of the last to get restored. 

“I’m concerned as to why our electricity stayed off for so much longer than other people in our neighborhood or even why that would happen,” Jessee said. “I am a little bit concerned that I’ll just go through this again if we have any kind of weather like this and we’re only at the very beginning of winter.” 

Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to providers like NES, told News 2 they saw record demand during the weather event and are working to identify gaps and come up with corrective action plans.  

“You never expect this to happen during Christmas. To spend your entire Christmas in the dark with candles and no family because everybody else is trying to deal with the same weather event, it’s been tough,” Jessee said. 

News 2 reached out to NES about Jessee’s outage and asked if they planned to make any changes following our extreme weather event. NES did not respond before broadcast but released a separate statement Monday afternoon saying power had been restored and emergency crews would be available to address isolated outages.