Thousands without power after tree falls on utility line

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Thousands of Bristol homes were without power Wednesday after a giant tree broke from its roots on East Cedar Street and smashed into a utility line.

“It was a major mess,” said Mike Browder, chief executive officer with Bristol Tennessee Essential Services. “It’s not often we have something this big a deal.”

Browder said 1,500 homes and businesses lost power immediately when the tree snapped at 1:10 p.m., bringing down two poles and several hundred feet of line.

Within 20 minutes, the lights were back on in 1,250 of those buildings, with the rest coming on in waves throughout the day. The last homes lit up about 7 p.m.

Four blocks of East Cedar Street, from Virginia Avenue to Georgia Avenue, were closed all afternoon and evening as 20 crews uprighted poles and spliced cables. 

Browder said the company received more than 2,000 calls, and had most of its workforce focused exclusively on the outtage. He said he believes years of drought killed part of the tree’s root system, causing it to snap at ground level.

A handful of homes in East Bristol were without cable, phone and Internet long into the evening because the fallen tree snapped the fiber optic cable. Browder said there are 216 fibers, about the side of a human hair, that run inside a cable that is about a half-dollar in diameter. To repair the connection, each individual fiber must be spliced twice, which takes several minutes.

For every splicing job finished, cable, Internet and phone service returns to about 32 homes. Browder said late Wednesday evening that he expected to have them all done by midnight.

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