Oak Ridge Schools are closed Tuesday due to winter weather.
“Please stay warm and safe!” a press release said.
AC Courthouse, trash convenience centers closed
The Anderson County Courthouse is closed Tuesday due to winter weather.
Anderson County was under a winter storm warning until Tuesday morning, with more snow expected Monday night, a press release said. With lows tonight expected to be 14 degrees Monday night, and a high on Tuesday expected at 25 degrees, “the snow and ice will create unsafe for conditions for citizens and county employees,” the press release said.
[Read more…]City manager’s ‘State of the City’ canceled due to weather
Randy Hemann, the new Oak Ridge city manager, had been scheduled to deliver the annual “State of the City of Oak Ridge” to the League of Women Voters on Tuesday, but the presentation has been canceled due to the winter weather, which has included heavy snow, cold temperatures, and hazardous road conditions.
The League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge said it hopes Hemann can deliver the presentation another time, but a new date hasn’t been announced yet.
[Read more…]ORNL, city offices & facilities closed Tuesday
City of Oak Ridge offices and facilities and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be closed Tuesday due to winter weather.
The city said only essential employees are expected to report to work. The Oak Ridge City Council work session scheduled for Tuesday will be postponed and a new date published later.
[Read more…]Roads, schools, businesses closed after heavy snow
Roads, schools, and businesses closed as snow fell for hours in Oak Ridge. The snow began about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, and snow continued to fall at about 6 p.m. Monday.
Oak Ridge Today measured almost seven inches of snow at about 5 p.m. Monday. The National Weather Service in Morristown had forecast between four to six and six to eight inches of snow in the Oak Ridge and Clinton areas.
“Very cold air is moving in across the region with sub-freezing temperatures continuing through Thursday,” the National Weather Service said. “Temperatures Tuesday night will be around zero!”
Roads, even main streets like Oak Ridge Turnpike, had a thick layer of snow on them, with a wet, slippery surface underneath. Traffic was light when normally it would be heavy, and most drivers drove slowly and cautiously, with some turning on their hazard lights.
“With significant snow accumulations across much of the area and very cold temperatures, hazardous travel conditions may develop,” the NWS said. “Avoid travel, but if you must, use caution.”
[Read more…]Oak Ridge EM prepared for cold weather to prevent failures
From DOE Office of Environmental Management’s “EM Update” newsletter
UCOR employees Andy Rodgers, left, and Alex Johnson install heat tracing to protect systems at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility during the cold snap in Oak Ridge. Temperatures did not reach above freezing for more than four consecutive days.
Much of the nation experienced an extreme cold snap over the recent holidays, and Tennessee was no exception with temperatures dipping to nearly zero degrees in Oak Ridge. Despite the bitter weather, preparations and recent upgrades helped prevent infrastructure failures during that time.
Many employees with EM cleanup contractor UCOR reported to work over the holidays to ensure issues were resolved at several essential facilities. (EM stands for environmental management.)
At the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, advanced planning and preparation protected critical water management systems during the deep freeze over the nearly weeklong cold snap, including a 6.5-hour unplanned power outage.
[Read more…]NWS: Temps above normal in 2022, but record cold Christmas Eve
The average temperatures in 2022 were above the normal temperatures in East Tennessee, but there were record cold temperatures reported on Christmas Eve, the National Weather Service said.
The number of cold hours around Christmas in late December might have seemed long, but it was not a record-breaker, the NWS said.
“The arctic front that ushered in this outbreak of cold weather moved through during the early morning hours on December 23,” the NWS said. Between then and the end of the cold streak, several locations recorded more than 100 consecutive hours at or below freezing (32 degrees Fahrenheit). Wise, a city in southwest Virginia north of Tennessee’s Tri-Cities, reported 107 hours below freezing, the NWS said. That’s equivalent to about 4.5 days. Oak Ridge was below freezing for 106 hours and Knoxville for 104 hours, both also close to 4.5 days.
[Read more…]TVA reviewing mandatory power outages
The Tennessee Valley Authority on Wednesday said it takes “full responsibility” for the impact of the first-ever mandatory power outages during the cold weather on Friday and Saturday last week, and it is reviewing what happened.
“We at TVA take full responsibility for the impact we had on our customers,” the electrical provider said in a press release posted on its website. “We never want to impact anyone’s energy at any time. This is not the way we want to serve our communities and customers.
“We are conducting a thorough review of what occurred and why. We are committed to sharing these lessons learned and—more importantly—the corrective actions we take in the weeks ahead to ensure we are prepared to manage significant events in the future.”
[Read more…]Closures announced due to weather
Government offices and other organizations have announced they will be closed or opening late Tuesday due to the weather.
The Anderson County Family Justice Center is closed, and Anderson County government offices are closed.
The Seventh Judicial District Attorney General’s Office is closed.
City of Oak Ridge offices are opening three hours late, at 11 a.m.
[Read more…]City offices opening 3 hours late
Temps could stay below freezing through Christmas
Temperatures could stay below freezing through Christmas, and a wind chill warning remains in effect for Oak Ridge through early Saturday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service in Morristown.
The wind chill warning expires at 1 p.m. Saturday. The NWS forecast said wind chill values could range between -3 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds of between 5 and 10 miles per hour. Scattered snow flurries are possible between noon and 2 p.m. Saturday.
The high Saturday is forecast near 22. The low Saturday night is forecast at 12.
[Read more…]Updated: TVA ends rolling blackouts
Note: This story was last updated at 12 p.m.
Mandatory rolling power blackouts continued in Oak Ridge and across the region Saturday morning. The City of Oak Ridge announced at about 11:40 a.m. Saturday that the power outages had been terminated.
Here is the previous story:
The blackouts will affect 10 percent of customers at a time, and power outages will last about 30 minutes, the City of Oak Ridge said in a press release. That’s a larger percentage of customers who will be affected by the Saturday outages than the ones on Friday, when about 2 percent of Oak Ridge customers were affected.
The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides power to the City of Oak Ridge, said the blackouts are necessary because of the extreme weather conditions, according to the press release. The power demand is high as temperatures have dropped into the single digits in what has been called a “once-in-a-generation” storm.
TVA said the power demand is among its highest in its nearly 90-year history. Typical power demands for December are around 24,000 megawatts. On Friday, power demands surpassed 33,000 megawatts, TVA said.
[Read more…]