Nashville Electric CEO Touted Tree-Hugging Over Aggressive Trimming Months Before Massive Ice Storm

The top official at the Nashville Electric Service touted her effort to save Nashville’s tree “canopy” last August instead of aggressively trimming trees away from power lines. Nashville Electric Service CEO Teresa Broyles-Aplin’s past comments have now come under scrutiny after an ice storm wrecked Nashville, bringing trees down onto roads and power lines and resulting in the worst power outage in the city’s history.

The Tennessee Star reported on Thursday that Broyles-Aplin, who took over as CEO of the electric service in 2022, touted her tree-hugging efforts during an August appearance on “Urban League Live” on NewsChannel 5 Nashville.

“We have customers sometimes that are concerned that we may be trimming aggressively and not taking into account the health of the trees, and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” she said. “We do species-specific trimming that is intended to ensure the health of the tree. … I think most people don’t realize that we go to that depth of effort, and we have arborists on our staff … that oversee the planning and the post-cutting inspections, so we take a lot of pride in making sure that we are cutting the trees in a healthy fashion.”

“We care about the [tree] canopy. We have to live here, too,” Broyles-Aplin said. “And so I don’t want us out destroying the canopy.”

The Daily Wire reached out to the Nashville Electric Service for comment.

While Broyles-Aplin assured people last August that the electric service takes extreme care in its trimming, some Nashville tree service owners told The Tennesseean that the Nashville Electric Service wasn’t properly keeping up with tree maintenance.

“If they maintained it better, there would be less power outages, at the end of the day,” said Lucas Crenshaw, but he also acknowledged that “you can only prepare so much.”

Meagan Cowles, another tree service owner, told the Nashville outlet, “I am very confident in my opinion to say that NES does not follow the proper cutting procedures to follow the standards.”

Tree cutting professionals told The Tennessean that the Nashville Electric Service should expand how far it cuts trees from power lines to ensure that falling trees don’t crash into the lines. They also suggested that homeowners should trim or cut trees on their property that could post a risk to the power lines near their homes.

The Nashville Electric Service is the 11th largest public utilities agency in the country. The service’s five-member board is appointed by the mayor and confirmed by Nashville’s Metro Council. The Nashville Electric Service has been criticized over its preparedness and response to the winter storm that pounded the city with snow and ice last weekend. Tens of thousands of Nashville residents have gone without power for five days as the city also faces extremely cold temperatures.

Along with facing scrutiny over its tree trimming strategy, the agency has also been slammed by many residents who say there is a lack of manpower in the field to address the vast power outages. The Nashville Electric Service had around 200 linemen prepared to work on downed lines, and the agency has nearly quadrupled the number of linemen in the field since the weekend, relying on help from other states.

One lineman told Fox 17 Nashville that he doesn’t think Nashville has deployed enough workers to address the widespread outages, adding that the city needed “a minimum of 2,000” linemen. The lineman said he believes the electric company didn’t want to pay union wages for outside help.

Broyles-Aplin released a statement on Thursday morning addressing the ongoing power outages.

“Many of you are waking up to day #5 without power, which is a significant hardship. It’s our job at NES to keep the power on, and we will not stop until every household in Nashville has power again,” she said. “This storm was unprecedented for Nashville and our country, affecting almost half of the U.S. Its icy layers caused widespread damage across our service area to transmission lines, substations and distribution networks.”

Broyles-Aplin said that around 230,000 residents lost power at the peak of the outages, but it was around 230,000 homes and businesses without power at the peak. Since multiple people reside in many homes, the outages likely affected far more than 230,000 people.

“Today, we have less than 90,000 homes remaining without electricity. NES has brought in partners from around the country to engage additional available, qualified crews,” Broyles-Aplin added.

The utilities CEO said that some Nashville residents should be prepared for the power outages to continue “through the weekend or longer.” Temperatures are expected to plunge again in the Music City this weekend, with lows nearing 10 degrees.