After storms this week, the Knoxville Utility Board saw roughly 15,000 homes without power. Those storms blew trees and limbs onto power lines Tuesday and Wednesday, and cleanup is still underway to restore power to the remaining few still in the dark.
Even though quite a few lost power, KUB works year-round to prevent homes from going dark during strong storms through its tree-trimming program.
Courtney Roark, a spokesperson for KUB, said it takes a while for their vegetation management teams to trim the thousands of miles of greenery that surrounds their lines.
"We prune along all 5,000 miles of our line on a regular cycle, approximately 1000 miles of that line is trimmed annually," she said. "It takes about five years to get through the whole system. And then at that point, we start over, and the whole cycle just keeps going".
It is a constant job for crews but a significant way to reduce the number of outages.
KUB said half of all outages are caused by fallen trees. Some of those trees were planted by homeowners.
People can help KUB out by being wise about where they plant their trees.
“Clever planting, that's how we like to say it. So anytime a customer wants to plant a tree, shorter trees should be 50 feet away from electric infrastructure, and taller trees should be approximately 10 to 20 feet away,” said Roark.
People can also call KUB if they see a tree on their property close to a power line.
“If a customer notices a limb that might, you know, appear to be dangerous or seems that it might fall on a line, they can call KUB.”