For weeks, the boards were going up. Plywood over storefront glass on South Main. Security cameras repositioned at Beale Street bars. Extra guards scheduled at the Peabody Hotel lobby. Memphis business owners spent October preparing for something ugly that never arrived.
Donald Trump won the presidency on Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, Memphis was quiet. No broken windows on Beale. No crowds surging through Downtown. No emergency calls flooding the 911 center about property damage or civil disturbance. The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office reported a normal overnight volume of calls.
The contrast between preparation and reality is worth examining, not because the preparation was wasted, but because it tells us something about where the private security industry stands in Memphis right now.
The Buildup
I started hearing from security firm owners in early October. Business was picking up in ways they hadn’t expected.
A property manager who oversees several retail buildings along Poplar Avenue told me he’d contracted extra patrol hours for the entire first week of November. “I didn’t know which way the election would go,” he said Wednesday morning. “I just knew my tenants were nervous. They’d been asking me since August what our plan was.”
Downtown Memphis saw the most visible preparations. Several restaurants and bars along Beale Street coordinated with Beale Street Management to arrange additional private security for election night and the following 48 hours. At least two establishments boarded up ground-floor windows, a precaution that drew comparisons to the summer of 2020.
The Shelby County government activated its emergency operations center on Tuesday as a precaution. Memphis Police Department increased patrols along the Main Street corridor and in Midtown commercial areas. MPD Chief CJ Davis told a local TV station on Monday that the department had “adequate resources deployed” for any scenario.
Private security firms reported a spike in short-term contracts during the last two weeks of October. One owner of a mid-size firm based near the airport told me his company booked 14 extra shifts between October 28 and November 6. Most of those shifts covered retail locations and office building lobbies in East Memphis and Germantown.
What Actually Happened
Tuesday night in Memphis was anticlimactic from a security standpoint, and that’s the best possible outcome.
Voters went to the polls. Shelby County saw strong turnout, continuing the trend from early voting. Memphians approved all six referendum measures on their ballot, including three gun safety measures that had fought their way through legal challenges to reach voters. The presidential race was called for Trump before midnight Central time.
And then people went home.
I drove through Downtown Memphis at 11 p.m. on Tuesday. Beale Street had its usual weeknight crowd, maybe a little thinner than normal. A few groups of people stood outside Silky O’Sullivan’s watching election results on their phones. The only security presence I noticed beyond the regular Beale Street patrol was a single additional guard standing near the intersection of Beale and Second Street.
By Wednesday morning, the plywood was already coming down at two South Main storefronts. I spoke with the owner of one of them, a boutique that had covered its windows the previous Friday.
“I feel a little silly,” she said. “But I’d rather feel silly than be replacing $4,000 worth of glass.”
The 2020 Shadow
You can’t talk about post-election security in Memphis without acknowledging what happened four years ago. The protests following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 included significant property damage in Downtown Memphis and along several commercial corridors. Businesses along Union Avenue, in the Crosstown area, and on parts of Poplar sustained broken windows, graffiti, and in a few cases, looting.
That experience left a mark on the business community. When the 2024 election cycle heated up, property managers and store owners didn’t need anyone to tell them to prepare. They remembered 2020. Some of them still had the same plywood sheets stored in their basements.
The security industry in Memphis responded to that memory. Several firms began marketing “election preparedness packages” in September. These typically included extra patrol hours, temporary camera installations, and consultation on window protection and access control. I saw at least three firms advertising these packages on social media.
Lessons for the Security Industry
So what do we take away from an event that didn’t happen?
First, the preparation itself had value. Businesses that contracted extra security for election week got something important even if no incident occurred: peace of mind for their employees and customers. A retail manager at a shop near Overton Square told me her staff was visibly calmer knowing a guard would be on-site through the weekend.
Second, the demand revealed a market. Election-related security is now a real category for private firms in Memphis. The 2020 cycle created awareness. The 2024 cycle created paying clients. By 2026, I’d expect to see election security listed alongside event security and construction site monitoring in firm brochures.
Third, coordination matters. The firms that did best during this period were the ones that communicated early with their clients, offered flexible contract terms, and had enough staff to cover unexpected requests. One firm owner told me he turned away three contracts in the final week because he couldn’t staff them. That’s a capacity problem worth solving before the next cycle.
Fourth, Memphis demonstrated that preparation and calm aren’t contradictory. The city prepared hard and stayed peaceful. There’s no evidence that the heavy security presence deterred anything specific. It’s more likely that Memphis residents simply chose not to engage in destructive behavior regardless of the election outcome.
The Cost Question
Preparation isn’t free. The businesses that boarded up windows, hired extra guards, and installed temporary cameras spent real money on a threat that didn’t materialize.
I asked several business owners whether they’d do it again. Every single one said yes.
“Insurance doesn’t cover everything,” said the manager of a restaurant near Court Square. “My deductible alone would’ve been more than what I paid for three days of extra security.”
That math makes sense for individual businesses. At the industry level, the 2024 election cycle probably generated somewhere between $200,000 and $400,000 in short-term security revenue across Memphis. That’s a rough estimate based on my conversations with about a dozen firms, so take it for what it’s worth. It’s not a massive number compared to annual revenue, but it’s new money that didn’t exist as a category five years ago.
What Comes Next
Memphis got through the 2024 election without incident. That’s good news for the city and its residents. It’s also useful data for security professionals planning ahead.
The takeaway isn’t that preparation was unnecessary. The takeaway is that preparation worked, either by deterring problems or by giving businesses confidence to stay open through a tense period. The firms that positioned themselves early for election-related work are now sitting on case studies and client relationships they can build on.
Tennessee’s next statewide election cycle hits in 2026. The midterms won’t carry the same emotional charge as a presidential race, but the precedent has been set. Memphis businesses know they’ll prepare again. And the security firms that helped them through this week just earned their spot on the call list.
For now, the plywood’s going back in storage. The extra shifts are wrapping up. And Memphis is getting back to normal, which is exactly what everyone was hoping for.