As the Holly Springs Utility Department continues to be assessed by an independent third-party consulting firm, more power outages have been reported, underscoring efforts by elected officials to remedy what has become a persisting issue.
Mississippi Public Commissioner Chris Brown, a former state representative, notified the public on Thursday that a major outage affected thousands of customers in the Ashland and Slayden areas of the state.
The Holly Springs Utility Department (HSUD), which encompasses Marshall, Benton, Lafayette, Hardeman, and Fayette counties in Mississippi and Tennessee, informed the commission that a substation had gone completely down. The local utility provider was unable to close the breakers or diagnose the problem.
Sources tell SuperTalk Mississippi News that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) came to the scene to remedy the issue. TVA representatives determined that a fuse connector had been struck by lightning and replaced it.
As of Friday morning, approximately 300 customers were experiencing outages unrelated to the substation. Residents claim their outages have come as a result of tree limbs on power lines, among other problems. Some customers are reported to have had their power restored temporarily before being plagued by another outage.
The latest outage highlights ongoing issues with the services provided by HSUD — some of which have occurred for several years. After being elected to the Public Service Commission in 2023, Brown sounded the alarm that customers of HSUD, which is managed by the city of Holly Springs, despite more than 80% of its users residing outside of city limits, have long been met with random power outages. However, no imminent solution has been offered by the public utility provider.
This, along with an alleged failure by Holly Springs officials to supply TVA with annual financial reports, prompted Brown to encourage his former colleagues in the Mississippi legislature to expand the Public Service Commission’s authority in regulating public utilities. Lawmakers obliged in 2024 and passed Senate Bill 2453, which allowed the commission to later tap Silverpoint Consulting out of Pennsylvania to assess the scope of service offered by HSUD.
After an alleged failure by Holly Springs officials to comply with Silverpoint’s investigation, the Public Service Commission scheduled a public show-cause hearing to take place in the state capital of Jackson. A legal Hail Mary hurled by Holly Springs’ attorneys allowed the city to skirt the January hearing, forcing the commission to delay its operations.
Nonetheless, sources tell us HSUD representatives have grown more compliant with Silverpoint in recent months and that the city’s show-cause order is no longer in effect. The independent consulting firm is currently in the process of compiling a report to present to the commission, which, along with a recommendation of what should happen to HSUD, will then be turned over to a judge to determine whether or not the city of Holly Springs is capable of managing its utility services.
“It was testified to us by TVA that, of the whole TVA valley, over 130-140 systems that they oversee, this one creates over 80% of their complaints, but the city has chosen to say that they don’t have a problem,” Brown stated back in January.
“We want to help them solve the problem because we’re hearing the voices of the people in the Holly Springs Utility District. We’ve heard their stories and we’re not going to turn our backs on them.”
