Hundreds of thousands of residents in Metro Nashville are entering their fourth day without power since Sunday (01/25) morning. Outside temperatures have remained in the single digits, and the inside of people’s homes are reaching freezing temperatures. There have been dozens of carbon monoxide poisoning cases involving adults and children, and nursing home residents report being in critical condition after days without power. At least 40 people have been killed by capitalist conditions under the storm, with 8 in Tennessee according to the state’s Department of Health.
Frustration is growing and Nashvillians are putting the blame on Mayor Freddie O’Connell and Nashville Electric Service (NES) for their negligent handling of the city’s response to Winter Storm Fern.
According to the NES 2025 annual report, the city cut $7.2 million in tree cutting, leading to a disproportionately higher number of outages in Nashville compared to anywhere else in the country.
City officials have also refused to hire enough linemen to complete the job in a timely manner. Nashville began with a disproportionately low amount of linemen compared to other states and cities—150 linemen to 230,000 households without power and hundreds of broken poles. Meanwhile, nearby counties had hundreds of linemen for less than 20,000 outages.
Testimonies from out-of-state union linemen and their families started to surface all over social media, accusing Nashville Electric Service of refusing to hire unionized linemen from states with better union wages, like Illinois. “My husband, along with a lot of union linemen crews have been trying to get into Tennessee to help after being released from neighboring states and have been turned away”, said Jennifer Bartels on Facebook.
Two linemen unionized with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) provided audio testimony to a local monopoly media outlet, corroborating the stories from all over social media. “I’ve had a lot of people reach out trying to come to Nashville to help restore power,” the lineman said. “They keep getting the same answer- that NES is full and doesn’t need help… I just don’t think they want to pay the union rates,” the petition says.
A petition has begun circulating demanding Nashville city officials hire more linemen. “We have collected enough testimonies and looked at enough numeric evidence to conclude that Nashville Electric Service is being cheap and letting our people die just so they can save some cash.”
Photo: Winter Storm Fern. Retrieved from social media.
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