Madison City Schools announces Thursday delays; TVA implores customers to conserve energy

Bob Jones High School, along with the other schools in Madison City, will be delayed two hours on Jan. 8. (File Photo)

By Nick Sellers

Falling in line with the Madison County and Huntsville City school systems, Madison City Schools will also delay start times for students on Thursday, Jan. 8. All procedures for schools, including bus routes and building openings, will start two hours later than normal.

“We understand that school delays or cancellations can create a hardship for many households,” Dennis James, director of student services for the school system, stated in a release. “We base such decisions on child safety, and we use the most current data available to guide us. In this instance, the NWS hourly projections for tomorrow now show wind chills at -2 degrees at 7 a.m.  By 9 a.m. those are projected to be 7 degrees (which is above the criteria for an advisory).”

The Huntsville area is expected to see single-digit temperatures Wednesday night into Thursday morning as part of an arctic blast system sweeping through the state, with a wind chill advisory lasting for the area until 9 a.m. Thursday morning.

Due to those threats, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Huntsville Utilities are asking customers to curtail consumption of electricity from 5 p.m. Wednesday evening until further notice.

“HU is asking all residential and commercial/industrial customers to cooperate in reducing power usage by doing the following: reduce or postpone the use of non-essential electric appliances such as dishwashers, dryers, and cooking equipment; reduce the use of HVAC units by adjusting thermostats; turn off non-essential lighting and other equipment,” Joe Gehrdes of Huntsville Utilities said in a press release.

While the release stated that no problems are anticipated, it added that frigid temperatures contribute to equipment failure and that HU crews will be “ready to respond.”