After she was furloughed from her task at a Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear plant three weeks earlier, Toni burned through her savings stocking up on essentials: lp, bathroom tissue, shampoo and food.
The 38- year-old single mom had her 2 high schoolers and her 20- year-old daughter, home from college, to take care of, and they required enough to survive on as the novel coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc throughout the country and brought the economy screeching to a stop.
She applied for unemployment nearly instantly. But, weeks later on, the check hasn’t come and the expenses keep installing. Across the country, utilities and states have actually enacted policies to stop service shut-offs for nonpayment. As an employee of the federally owned power business that generates nearly all of Tennessee’s electricity, she figured the energies that distribute that energy would follow suit.
Last week, she called the Dayton Electric Department, the local power distributor in her village in central Tennessee, to let them know she ‘d be late on her expense. The reaction was unsparing, she told HuffPost on Friday evening.
” They generally told me they’ll provide me five extra days, and I ‘d accrue late fees, and if I couldn’t pay it they ‘d have to run it off,” said Toni, who asked to keep her last name private for worry of drawing unwanted attention to her children. “They said if they let everyone not pay, they ‘d be losing cash, and it wasn’t their problem.”
If she does not develop $236, plus $26 in late costs, the energy stated, her power would be shut down Monday. It would have been Friday, but the local government was closed for Excellent Friday.
If her unemployment check does not come Saturday and she can’t summon the cash, the cost of getting the power back on will go up more. With the $65 reconnection fee, the overall expense will come to $327
” I’m hoping and praying my unemployment comes in tomorrow,” she stated Friday.
Dayton Electric did not call back Friday asking for comment.
This is the plain reality for numerous Americans, especially those in rural parts of the South, whose energy providers run outside the bounds of the state regulatory orders and corporate promises to keep the power and heat on throughout a pandemic that requires anybody who can to stay at home.
In the Southeast, especially in Tennessee, the electrical system dates back to the early 20 th century, when the New Deal funded large public power jobs to energize a bad area that personal energies, unable to make a profit, just left in the dark. In an ironic historical twist, that system now leaves millions at the grace of small-town nickel-and-dimers.
Tennessee’s Special Situation
Like lots of states, the Tennessee Public Utility Commission directed power business to stop disconnecting service to homes that couldn’t manage their costs as the pandemic caused a wave of layoffs that shattered weekly jobless claims records for the previous three