ATTALA COUNTY, Miss. — About 160 people who live off Highway 35 in northern Attala County say they are regularly left without power because of aging powerline infrastructure and overgrown tree limbs they allege have not been addressed in years.Neighbors describe recurring outagesFor Aaron Blaine and his neighbors around Highway 3221 and 3231, rolling power outages have become a way of life.“It happens here in our area about three to four times a month every month,” Blaine said. “When it do go out, it’s 12 to 24 hours before we get power back on.”As a father of three, Blaine said the outages worry him every day in his own home.“If the power goes out at 9, 10 at night and school’s the next morning, you see what I’m saying, we might have to drive 10 to 15 minutes to my mother-in-law’s house,” Blaine said. “And stay the night to take showers.”Blaine and his neighbors showed 3 On Your Side a string of texts they sent Entergy last Wednesday during an outage. They said nothing has changed.“Just please do your job,” neighbor Jerry Rigby said. “It doesn’t make a difference when the lights were out three to four times this week. Your light bill don’t never go down.”“Six to seven years this problem’s been happening and you don’t see trucks nowhere,” Blaine said. “You don’t see anybody on the roads working.”Video shows outage with no stormNeighbor Krystal Henry recorded video Wednesday night showing an outage when no storm had passed through. Residents blame aging power poles with weak wiring along Highway 35 and 3221 colliding with overgrown tree limbs.“When you have a power surge, that’s a limb touching a powerline and it will soon kill the breaker,” Rigby said. “A lady just told me a few minutes ago it burned her washing machine up. It got my air conditioning.”Rigby has lived in the area around Highway 3221 for almost 50 years. He said conditions could improve if more attention were given to the tree lines and infrastructure.“If they would just maintain the lines and cut these limbs back, it would make a world of difference,” Rigby said. “We’ve got some light poles that need to be replaced also. It’s been about 15 to 18 years ago when they came out here and cut the limbs back and it did a world of good.”Entergy responds3 On Your Side reached out to Entergy by email and we received the following response:“We understand how frustrating power outages are for our customers. We have been in contact with Attala County ​customers who have experienced frequent outages and appreciate their patience as we work to address the issue. Earlier this year, our team conducted vegetation maintenance in the area.  We continue to perform additional assessments and have scheduled a full circuit inspection to gather detailed information needed to identify the cause of these interruptions. Once these inspections are complete, we will develop and share a clear plan of action to improve reliability.We are committed to safely providing power for all our customers."Neighbors showed 3 On Your Side emails from Entergy leadership they received Friday morning stating the company is “investigating and inspecting” the area and identified trees causing the issue.The email said, in part: “Our team reviewed outage data to determine causes in the impacted area. Yesterday our team was in the field assessing vegetation issues and have identified a number of trees outside our right of way that create risks and found evidence of lots of downed trees both green and dead that fell from outside our right of ways creating damage. We intend to immediately address those danger trees and do further assessments. There was also work scheduled for that area that we will work to move forward. We will also address some damaged neutrals and facilities in the area that have been damaged either for falling limbs or lighting.”Entergy also offers a variety of ways to report outages on their website and request services that involve tree cutting and safety inspections. Click here to learn more about that. Residents pursue townhall meetingResidents say they are working to set up a townhall meeting with help from state leaders.“I don’t believe that we would have gotten this far into this in this amount of time without our Mississippi Speaker of the House Jason White,” Morgan Henry told 3 On Your Side. “Or Northern Mississippi Public Service Commissioner Chris Brown.”There is no set timeline yet for a meeting between residents, Entergy leadership and other officials seeking long-term solutions.Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please click here to report it and include the headline of the story in your email.Copyright 2026 WLBT. All rights reserved.