Resident unhappy with 34-hour wait for power
By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Nashville Electric Service was working to restore the last scattered customers without power in Brentwood and hoped to have most online by Thursday night. But at least one Meadowlake resident isn't happy how long her home went without electricity.

Simone Salghetti, whose Oakvale Drive home she rents was hit by a tree in Monday's storms, said she also lost the contents of her two freezers and two refrigerators after trees in a neighbor's yard took out power lines. Power wasn't restored for about 34 hours, with her family "abandoning the house" for a motel about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

About six weeks ago, after another storm, it took about 18 hours for crews to get power back on the street. Salgetti's patience was stretched when she couldn't reach a live person at NES on Monday and had trouble getting through at all, she said. Her frustration was compounded when an automated service called and woke them up about 2 a.m. both nights asking if the power had been restored.

NES spokesperson Laurie Parker said early Thursday afternoon that 750 customers remained without power throughout the coverage area, including one chunk of about 278 in one outage in MetroCenter. (Update at 10 p.m. Thursday: 44 NES customers were still awaiting power.)

"Thankfully Brentwood was not one of the harder hit areas," Parker said. "It looks like on our outage map that we have just a few scattered here and there now."

Parker said remaining outages would take more time to restore because the electric service was down to more individual problem areas rather than larger areas affected by a substation, for instance.

"It's just been very slow because there were so many trees that came down, not just limbs, but actual trees," Parker said. "When that kind of thing happens, we have to get crews go in and clear the debris before we can even get in to repair the lines."

The utility also had to replace 62 poles brought down by the raging storm that produced straight-line winds and some tornado touchdowns throughout Middle Tennessee including in the Cool Springs area.

"And it wasn't in one particular area; it was very heavily damage all across the service area, which makes it even more challenging," Parker said.

Power went out at Salghetti's home about 2 p.m. on Monday and wasn't restored until close to midnight Tuesday while she and her family, including 8- and 14-year-olds, were in the hotel. Because she had hit the circuit breaker, power didn't go back on until she got back home about 9 a.m. Wednesday.

"We couldn't take it anymore," Salghetti said. "...We camped out the first night, but by the second night we had no hot water, no electricity, no cable, no Internet and no actual telephone line because they were all bundled together."

Salghetti said they cleaned out five garbage bags full of food from her side-by-side units in the house and the garage. She went to the grocery briefly Wednesday to get enough food for dinner and breakfast.

"I'll have to start restocking slowly because it's just a phenomenal amount of food to throw out," she said.

The tree that fell into her home destroyed the porch, part of the roof and much of the front of the home. The family is living in the back half of the house until the severity of the damage can be determined, and she doesn't know if they'll be able to stay there when the landlord begins repairs.

A tarp is covering a hole in the roof. Salghetti  is thankful to neighbors who assisted her along with a tree crew regularly used by one of her neighbors.

"I'm really thankful for the responsive neighbors and the tree crew who got the tree off the house while the storm was still raging and there was lightning and what not," she said. Neighbors also helped secure a tarp over the hole in the roof, which "had water pouring into the hallway. So I'm thankful I had such great neighbors to respond."

A total of five trees were downed on the property where she lives, with the three-trunk tree causing damage to more trees. Another pine in the back also had to come down, she said.

Salghetti was working on the computer and heard Brentwood's tornado warning sirens go off but didn't hear an announcement and began checking the web for radar and other reports. She heard about something in Franklin and Davidson County but thought the area would be OK.

"Then the lights kind of dipped and came back up, and then dipped again, and the winds picked up and it sounded really bad outside," she said. "I got up to go the closet we've designated as our tornado shelter, and I got halfway down the hallway and couldn't get in there.

"I backed down the hallway when the whole house shook ... Then I realized that a tree had fallen on the house."

Salghetti's children were at school at the time. "They were upset when they got home to see the damage," she said. "My youngest one's bedroom is damaged."