Kenny Harper, a line crew leader at Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative in Kentucky, was stunned by the overwhelming destruction he encountered when he traveled to South Carolina to help co-ops ravaged by Hurricane Helene.
“It was just total devastation,” said Harper, who estimates he had served on about 10 mutual aid crews before rushing in to assist Aiken Electric Cooperative.
“People absolutely lost everything. There were trees that had fallen through houses, through cars, through campers. People were out there with chainsaws just trying to cut through all the branches to get somewhere. They were in shock, trying to pick up the pieces of their lives.”
The hurricane triggered the largest mutual aid response in Kentucky electric co-op history, as more than 250 lineworkers from 19 co-ops joined nearly 10,000 co-op personnel from 24 states to meet the overwhelming demand for help, said Joe Arnold, vice president of strategic communications at Kentucky Electric Cooperatives.
The Kentucky co-ops have been working in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina for the last four weeks, often putting in 16-hour days, Arnold said. More than 100 Kentucky co-op contractors also helped.
“One of our principles is Cooperation Among Cooperatives, and state borders are no barrier when any member of our co-op family is in crisis,” said Chris Perry, president and CEO of Kentucky Electric Cooperatives and United Utility Supply Cooperative, which serves co-ops in 20 states.
It was impossible to get bucket trucks into debris-strewn neighborhoods, where lineworkers were climbing over toppled trees before scurrying up restored power poles to string lines, said Dustin Cope, a lineworker with Paducah-based Jackson Purchase.
“At one point, we were down in a literal swamp, and I actually fell into a pond,” he said.
One of the hardest parts of the job was telling homeowners that power couldn’t be restored to their houses because there was too much structural damage and it wasn’t safe, said Micah Joiner, another Jackson Purchase lineworker.
“You’re standing there with somebody who just went through everything they’ve been through, and you have to deliver that bad news,” he said. “It’s tough.”
Helene made landfall Sept. 26 in Florida’s Big Bend and knocked out electric service to an estimated 1.25 million co-op consumer-members in the southeastern United States, including 100,000 members in Kentucky. Many of the crews that helped in other states responded first to mutual aid requests within Kentucky, Arnold said.
People whose homes and lives had been wrecked still took the time to thank the mutual aid crews, the lineworkers said.
“Everyone was so generous and kind,” said Nick Hudnall, an operations supervisor at Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp. in Bowling Green, Kentucky, who provided aid to Jefferson Energy Cooperative in Wrens, Georgia.
“They would bring us food and offer to cook for us. Usually, when there’s a storm and people are without power for that many days, some of them can get kind of hateful toward you. But there was none of that on this trip. Every time we’d pull up, people would start crying and shaking our hands and thanking us for coming.”
When crews were able to restore power safely to homes, residents “would be whooping and hollering with happiness,” said Hudnall, whose crew helped replace more than 60 broken power poles and rebuild circuits from the substation to the end of the line during their 16 days in Georgia.
“I love seeing the smiles on the members’ faces when the lights come back on,” he said. “You’re like a superhero to them.”
The same was true in South Carolina, Harper said.
“When we were eating at restaurants or stopping for fuel, somebody would go out of their way to walk over and say thank you,” he said.
“Our job is very rewarding. When you see the devastation that people have been through and they have such emotion and appreciation, it really makes you sit back and be proud of what we do.”
Joiner said it also meant a lot to him to be able to gather with the local lineworkers who were working nonstop in extraordinarily difficult conditions to help rebuild their communities.
“They were just worn out from it all,” he said. “They were so appreciative that we were there. It felt like we were really helping hold them up at that point.”
The mutual aid lineworkers said their wives and children also deserve credit for taking care of everything at home while they were gone.
“It’s a sacrifice for them,” Cope said. “And my wife doesn’t even question it; she’s so supportive.
“Once we started making our way home, I was getting excited to see my wife and get a big hug around the neck from my 3-year-old daughter. You really appreciate what you have. That’s what it’s all about.”
Erin Kelly is a staff writer for NRECA.