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The southeastern United States took a 1-2 punch of hurricane destruction last week as Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated areas from Florida to North Carolina. Local power crews and water rescue teams answered the call for help by rebuilding the power grid across western North Carolina and assisting with water rescues in the Tampa area.
Stampede Powerline Services of Wiley, Colo., was called to assist with Hurricane Helene.
Owner Shane Hawks and crewmen from SPLS traveled to Orlando, Fla., to await Helene. After the storm made landfall in Perry, Fla., the crew moved to Lawton, NC, where they began working September 28 to restore the power infrastructure in the mountains of North Carolina that were damaged by the storm.
Hawks and his crew were on the road home Monday afternoon after 20 days’ straight of work.
“We started in Florida and we were going to assist PECO Power, but the hurricane ended up not affecting that system as bad as they thought, and then that’s when we moved to North Carolina,” Hawks said.
The crew stayed in a camp with 800 other men and women, given multiple tasks per day to restore power to area residents and businesses.
“Basically they had bunk houses that were 8-feet-by-8 feet,” Hawks added. “All of us got our own bunks and then they had shower trailers and a buffet cafeteria set up in a little convention center on the fairgrounds.”
Once the crew restored power, it moved on to other areas to restore power. Hawks said it was great to help the families without power.
“When you’re working the neighborhoods in the rural areas, the people were real friendly and they were all grateful and thankful,” Hawks said. “We sure loved to help out where we can and we like to get people’s power back on as quick as possible so they can go back to their normal lives.”
The team providing support included Shane Hawks of Wiley, Colo.; Keith Dennis, Holly, Colo.; Josh Bateman, Lamar, Colo.; Ezequiel Chenoweth, Idalia, Colo.; Gunner Hesse, Greensburg, Colo.; Ryan Hause, Ulysses; Victor Correa, Ulysses; Levi Johnson, Haswell, Colo., and Tony Anderson, Yoder, Colo.Hawks said his crew has helped restore power in multiple disasters from Texas, Oklahoma and Florida.
•Pioneer Electric Cooperative also sent crews to South Carolina, where they helped customers of Aiken Electric Cooperative, which had 47,000 customers without power after Hurricane Helene. The Pioneer crew left October 3 and joined more than 60 other linemen from Kansas to aid Aiken Electric Cooperative.
•Elsewhere, according to KFDA, the Guymon Fire Department Swift Water Rescue Team went to Florida last week ahead of Hurricane Milton.
The Guymon team worked with the Lawton Fire Swiftwater Team and Coalgate Fire Swiftwater Team.
The Guymon team deployed October 8 in Live Oak, Fla. The Oklahoma team is one of the closest “non-local” Swiftwater teams to the expected impact area.
Guymon, Lawton, and Coalgate Swiftwater teams got the call to deploy at 10:30 p.m. October 9 to Bradenton, Fla., which is located 13 miles north of Sarasota. This location is an area the Hurricane made landfall and expected highest water surge. Teams left the Live Oak Staging area at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and made it to their first location at 4:45 a.m. October 10. They were starting in a large mobile home park beginning search and rescue in boats.
When they departed Staging with the Oklahoma Teams, they were advised to expect a five-day mission and were limited to no phone service and known power outages.
The Guymon crew headed home Monday.
Tri-County Electric in Hooker, Okla., sent linemen to Jefferson Energy Cooperative in Georgia to offer mutual aid after Hurricane Helene and Milton.
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