NEWPORT-Last Thursday's heavy, wet snow brought beauty, extra school holidays, traffic woes, and downed power lines to Cocke County residents.

Power outages quickly became the norm as trees and limbs snapped under the snow's weight. In other cases, trees simply uprooted because of the saturated ground created by heavy rains all week.

However, Newport Utilities workers, laboring around the clock, had all power restored by Saturday night, according to NU Electric Department Manager Jimmy Robertson.

At one point, over 6,500 NU customers were without power, Robertson said, but by Saturday morning, that number had dropped to fewer than 250 in seven locations.

For more details, please see the Tuesday edition of the Newport Plain Talk.