🌳 BRANCH MANAGER

Storms create messes. Trees come down. Power lines snap. Crews work long hours, and people make do. In Williamson County, none of that needs explaining.

January’s ice storm slammed Middle Tennessee like a freight train wrapped in frozen spite. Nashville Electric Service took a massive hit, with roughly 230,000 customers without power at the peak — the largest outage the utility has ever recorded. Poles were broken. Access was tough. No one expected a magic wand.

But what happened after the ice stopped falling? That’s where the real mess piled up, and NES and Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell turned it into something special.

Fast forward to the Friday after the storm — nearly a week after large parts of the grid went dark — and the mayor was out front praising the NES response. Fox 17 described O’Connell as “standing by Nashville Electric Service leadership’s handling of the winter storm.” O’Connell himself marveled:

“The fact that this is their largest ever number of line crews out with line workers and vegetation support ever, I think that’s a sign of their success.”

That wasn’t early optimism or even the fog of the first 48 hours. That was late-stage praise, delivered while large swaths of the system were still blacked out for days — including significant portions of Williamson County.

Down in Brentwood, that tone was not landing. Residents weren’t debating whether the storm was historic; they were staring at cold houses and empty streets. The City of Brentwood flat-out called the response glacial: the pace of restoration was too slow, and residents should not be expected to wait another week or more. The city also made a point of explaining that it held no authority over NES, no special insight, no secret dashboard — just the ability to press and advocate.

Translation: “This sucks, and we’re as helpless as you are.”

Then, later that same day, the mayor executed a 180 so sharp it could cause permanent neck damage. Pressed point-blank if he was satisfied with NES, O’Connell responded:

“No, I am not satisfied, have not been satisfied and continue to expect them to do better.”

Same day. Same outage. A blink-and-you-miss-it pivot.

And because nothing says “we hear you” like bad optics, the public got treated to the now-infamous photo op. Mayor O’Connell appeared in a neighborhood, photographed and filmed dutifully carrying a fallen branch while actual crews were already chainsawing away debris. Whatever the intent, the effect was unmistakable. When residents are asking for answers, seeing Mayor Soy-Lumberjack haul a limb to the curb didn’t exactly read as leadership. It reads as a consultant’s bad idea that no one had the courage to veto.

(Free tip, O’Connell: Fire that consultant.)

The following day, NES released its restoration timeline by ZIP code. And surprise! — full restoration in some areas projected as late as February 9. O’Connell declared:

“The proposed pace of restoration is unacceptable. Nashvillians deserve better.”

Fair enough. But that raised an obvious question south of Old Hickory: what about everyone else?

Here’s the part that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. NES is governed by a five-member board appointed by the Nashville mayor. O’Connell appointed two of those members during his tenure. It’s said that none of the five live in Williamson County, despite the county accounting for a substantial share of NES customers. Regardless of where the board actually lives, here’s the rub: Williamson County residents don’t vote for the Nashville mayor. They can’t vote him out. Yet they live with the decisions made by a board he controls.

Contrast that with neighboring Middle Tennessee Electric — their crews were visible, organized, and effective. Meanwhile, reports described NES bucket trucks idling in parking lots, waiting for orders that got lost in the bureaucracy shuffle.

NES leadership spent years emphasizing messaging priorities, internal initiatives, and tree-canopy sensitivity. Post-storm, suddenly everyone’s on the aggressive-trimming train. Welcome aboard. But why did basic contingency planning, clear command chains, and realistic staffing rank lower than DEI retreats and slide-deck priorities?

No grand conspiracy is required to see the problem here. Just incentives: when the board answers to Nashville voters and not all of NES customers, accountability gets… selective.

Williamson County residents spent days — in some cases more than a week — without power under a utility governed by a board they have zero representation on. They saw praise turn into criticism only after pressure mounted. They watched symbolism substitute for substance. And they witnessed a neighboring utility handle the same storm with far less confusion.

Something clearly needs to change. That could mean a board that better reflects the people being served, or it could mean changing the service footprint, letting Middle Tennessee Electric handle areas it already manages effectively. It could also mean serious, boring contingency planning instead of Bluesky-inspired priorities that look good on a campaign sign.

“Nashvillians deserve better” rings hollow to those freezing in blackness, outside of Davidson County. The lights may soon be back on for all, but the resentment? That’s going to burn longer than any outage. And it’s well-earned.