When seven lineworkers from New Jersey’s Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative volunteered to help co-ops restore power in Georgia after Hurricane Helene last fall, they encountered wildlife they just don’t find at home: giant Joro spiders the size of their palms, scorpions clinging to the tops of power poles, cottonmouth snakes and an alligator lurking in a pond.
The unique Southern critters made a big impression on the Jersey mutual aid crew, but it was the generosity of Georgia co-op members that the lineworkers say they’ll remember most. Despite the devastation to their own homes and communities, local residents went out of their way to welcome the volunteers, delivering pizza and iced tea to their worksites and filling them up with homemade meals at the local churches.
“The Southern hospitality was incredible,” said lineworker Jake Hasert, who postponed his honeymoon to help the Georgia co-ops. “At the end of the day, we would go to the churches, and they would have an endless amount of homecooked food for us. Pork chops, fried chicken, cube steak and homemade pecan pie that you’re not getting the recipe for unless somebody dies.”
To say thank you, the lineworkers recently donated a total of $2,000 to the two Baptist churches that kept them nourished while they worked long days, endured mosquitoes that could bite through sweatshirts and slept in tents in a high school parking lot.
The crew contributed the money through Sussex REC’s employee-directed giving program, which is funded by unclaimed capital credits. When an employee donates $52 through a payroll deduction, the Wantage-based co-op will add $198, for a total of $250, said Claudia Raffay, the co-op’s director of marketing and member services.
The churches—Satilla Baptist Church and Red Oak Baptist Church—are both in Baxley, in southern Georgia near Alma-based Satilla Rural Electric Membership Corp. Some of the New Jersey crew members also helped restore power at Habersham Electric Membership Corp. in Clarksville in northern Georgia.
The damage to the Georgia co-op communities from the fierce winds was overwhelming, with toppled pine trees and flooding everywhere, said lineworker Jeff Rowen, who volunteered in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and said what he saw in Georgia rivaled that epic disaster. Co-ops in the state faced more than 400,000 power outages after Helene roared through.
“People had been out of power for three or four weeks, but they weren’t mad; they understood,” Rowen said. “They were so grateful to see us.”
Lineworker Tony Salokas said he enjoyed the experience because of people’s “good hearts” and the camaraderie of working with mutual aid crews from all over the country.
“We’re all hands-on kind of guys,” he said. “We like to rig things up, make them work. We tell stories and joke around, but at the end of the day you always get the work done.
“Our local crew leader’s daughter is on a softball team, and they brought us bags of candy. Everyone is welcoming you like you’re part of their family. You make lifelong friends.”
Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.