My company is headed to Orlando to help restore power!!

[wanna-b-Tink]

I work for an Electric Cooperative here in North Carolina. We sent a huge crew of men to Orlando this morning to help restore electricity.

If you see white trucks with a red "power" ball as a logo, and the name "Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation" on them, that's my boys!!!

I told one of the crew leaders that stayed here in case we have problems of our own in the next few days, that I sure would have liked to hitch a ride with the guys.

Here's our website, so you can see what our logo looks like: http://www.blueridgeemc.com/default.htm

 

[Scoootch]

Tell them all THANK YOU!!

We were fortunate enough to have power restored within a day but what a long day!! I can only imagine for those without right now. So Thank the crews for us all!

 

[wanna-b-Tink]

I'll tell them when they get back in town!

I just talked to an Operations Manager that stayed in town, and we sent the following:

7 big bucket trucks
1 small bucket truck
one mechanic truck
one operations manager
one construction layout specialist

That's 19 men. The OM and CLS will make sure our men have clean clothes and food.

They will be returning home Friday, and we'll be sending a second team to relieve them at that time. They'll meet on the interstate going in opposite directions.

We are a small cooperative in NC (170 employees in the whole company). Not a big power utility like Duke or Florida Power, so it is great that our men have an opportunity to serve other communities!

I did ask our OM just a minute ago if I could hitch a ride with him when he goes down Friday, and he said I really wouldn't want to. The storm really brings out the snakes and mosquitos. So BE CAREFUL and LOOK FOR SNAKES!!!

I replied that I didn't want to go into the swampland where HE was going, but that he could just drop me off at Mickey's House! He didn't get it...

 

[Annette_VA]

Big big Thank You!!!

 

[kap10]

We fled WDW on Saturday morning, driving our rental car back to DC. To entertain the kids, since we hadn't planned on driving home until the last minute, we counted the "cherry picker" trucks headed south on I-95 as we headed north. We did miss a few, I'm sure, when trees blocked our view of the south bound lanes, but we counted 229 "cherry picker" trucks, not including other vehicles. I was so impressed with them going to help out. The storm hadn't even made landfall and they were on their way to help. I think my kids learned a valuable lesson in people helping other people.

 

[TEENEE]

Fortunately I have power but many friends on both coasts don't have power. On behalf of them I want to thank your company for lending such a big hand.

 

[orvilleair]

Betcha there will be a lot of places where the bucket trucks can't get to (mud, swamp etc...). Hope they brought their spikes!wanna-b-tink, tell your OM you have to go to WDW just to get the meter reading.

 

[Towncrier]

I hope that some of the phone companies send some crews down to help restore the phone lines. Although not at all critical or life threatening, it is annoying that company that hosts the website that I manage just happens to have been in the path of Frances. Normally this wouldn't be a big concern, but the festival for which this website exists starts this Saturday. No time estimate as to when their OC48 connection will be restored either. I know that they are all OK. They just got cutoff from the rest of the internet.

Thanks to all the dedicated workers who are heading to Florida to help get that state back on its feet. I'm sure that you are all working as hard as you can to restore Florida's utilities.

 

[wanna-b-Tink]

Originally posted by orvilleair
Betcha there will be a lot of places where the bucket trucks can't get to (mud, swamp etc...). Hope they brought their spikes!wanna-b-tink, tell your OM you have to go to WDW just to get the meter reading.

They definitely have their spikes. We're in the Blue Ridge Mountains, so most of the time, they have to climb - trucks can't get to a lot of our poles. We even have to set several poles by helicopter here! One good thing is that all of our trucks are 4WD because of the terrain here. I understand trucks in some areas of the country are just 2WD, so we should be able to get to some areas others can't.

I'm proud of our guys! They are accustomed to being away from home for a week or so at a time during hurricane season - but its usually just over on the NC coast. This is the first time we've gone to Florida!

meter reading...hey...good idea!

Good luck on the phone service. I completely understand where you're coming from!

 

[Mom2Ashli]

I was lucky enough to not lose my power. But the other side of the street did and several of my co-workers are still without power.

So A GREAT BIG THANK YOU!!

That is so great that they are coming this way to help out.