Some East Tennessee homes will be seeing rolling blackouts as the area sees some of the coldest temperatures it’s seen in decades, according to releases from power officials.

Several local power company officials announced Friday that, due to high energy consumption, the Tennessee Valley Authority asked them to implement rolling blackouts.

The rolling blackouts will affect several areas across East Tennessee, power officials said. Rolling blackouts are intentional power outages by electric providers in different locations that last no more than 30 minutes.

The power overloads are mostly responsible for the power outages today since the temps dropped below zero overnight. TVA electric power demands have reached near peak-overload status which is the reason they must initiate rolling blackouts.  TVA is asking everyone to cut back on electric usage as much as possible by lowering thermostats a few degrees and cutting off all unnecessary appliances and lights.  Basically, minimize electric usage to the bare bones. Cumberland county had up to 7,000 outages cumulative since the cold blast moved in overnight.  As of 1pm CT today the outages had been reduced to 260 countywide.