NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Jay Kill never thought owning a bar would be easy, but this week has been trying for the Germantown business owner.
“I think many of us got caught unprepared and unaware of how cold it was going to get,” Kill said.
Sunday night’s snow storm brought heating and water issues for Frankie J’s and forced them to close for nearly three days.
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“I felt like we missed a great opportunity to support the neighborhood for food sources and a place just to get out of the house,” Kill said, gesturing to people walking their dogs outside his bar.
However, instead of making money, he has been spending it.
“Just the resources to be able to pay for all this when we’re losing revenue, and it’s already a slow month in January and hospitality and restaurants and bars and economies are tight, so resources are very, very tight to be able to afford to get professionals out to fix [the pipes],” he said.
Once he exasberated his handyman skills and called in a team to help get his bar up and running, more problems came up.
“After the plumber left, we didn’t realize the waterline froze up…and it’s causing water leaks,” Kill said Wednesday afternoon.
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While they are able to remain open and are encouraging customers to come in to fight the cabin fever, Kill worries Thursday’s anticipated wintery mix and low temperatures will nullify all his recent efforts to keep the bar up and running.
“I’m 100% worried because you just don’t know. If snow comes and if then we lose power, and then we freeze again and don’t have heat or electricity if this ice storm comes,” he said.
Yet he knows he is far from alone and lucky the conditions in his home and business aren’t worse.
According to Lee Company, their teams responded to more than 500 calls in Middle Tennessee on Wednesday and over 90% of their workforce is taking calls.
“We’ve seen a lot more frozen pipes today than we did in the last three days,” said Lee Company Director of Emerging Markets Jake Dotson.
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Dotson said they anticipate to get more calls Thursday considering temperatures have been rising and falling over the past few days.
“What I’m expecting us to see over the next few days, as the temperature heats up, the pipes that are frozen that you may not know are frozen…or if they’re frozen and they thaw and it will actually split the pipe, and now you’ve got water leaking, and so over the next few days, we’re going to deal with water leaking in homes or spraying in homes,” he explained.
However, pipe issues aren’t the only calls they are getting; Dotson said as people plug in more and more heating appliances like space heaters, they can overwhelm their system.
“A heat pump system in a home is only designed to work to about 12 degrees, and so once it gets below 12 degrees, it’s difficult to heat that home to 68…70 degrees where we’re all comfortable at,” he said.
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However, Dotson said his team is ready to respond to people in need and will be prioritizing calls based on need.
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