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After the storm
Spend a day with co-op lineworkers as they rebuild the electric grid in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.
Photo by Milton Morris
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Never the same thing twice
“A power outage is like a box of chocolates. No two are the same,” says veteran Pee Dee Electric lineman Lex Gandy, who has seen outages caused by storms, animals, cars and even a wayward crop duster in almost 25 years on the job. “There is always something just a little bit different about each one.”
Photo by Tim Hanson
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Making quick work of repairs
Horry Electric Cooperative experienced the full force of Hurricane Florence as it churned into South Carolina. An army of co-op repair crews began work when the eye of the storm passed overhead, and didn’t stop until all members were reconnected.
Photo courtesy of Horry Electric Cooperative
Figuring out how to get a downed power line across a swamp teeming with cottonmouths might not be the biggest problem facing Eugene Bryant’s crew of Pee Dee Electric Cooperative linemen in the wake of Hurricane Florence—but it would sure enough do for the moment.
The massive storm that slowly churned across North and South Carolina in mid-September knocked out power to tens of thousands of co-op-served homes and businesses. Swollen rivers overflowed their banks and flooded highways. In some areas, roads were simply washed away, leaving only ragged portions of pavement hanging precariously over rushing waters several feet below.
Long before Florence made landfall, South Carolina’s electric cooperatives activated contingency plans, staging equipment and repair crews near the path of the storm. Bryant and his fellow Pee Dee lineworkers prepared to work 14- to 16-hour days. Meanwhile, Mike Fuller, the co-op’s President and CEO, coordinated with Todd Carter, Vice President of Loss Control and Training for The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, to augment the co-op’s workforce with additional men and trucks from co-ops in Missouri and Arkansas.
On the second day of the still-active storm, this small army of linemen tug on rain gear and fix hard hats securely on their heads, heading out before daybreak with a single goal in mind—restore service as quickly and safely as possible in areas that have lost power.
One problem at a time
It is in one of these areas, well off the beaten path not far from Dargan’s Pond east of Darlington, that Bryant and his team find a section of line that has been knocked down and severed by a tree that has fallen across the wires. The line had once spanned a swamp, but now, unfortunately for the crew, one part of the line lay on one side of the swamp and the other part lay on the opposite side maybe 300 feet away.
How, then, to get across the swamp and make the line whole again? Wading is out of the question since the water is deep and the current swift. And there are snakes. A lot of snakes.
One of the linemen thinks he might be able to tie a line to an arrow and then use his personal bow to shoot it across the swamp. But before that plan can take shape, someone from an out-of-state crew loans Bryant’s team something called the Big Shot. It is, essentially, a really big slingshot attached to an 8-foot-long fiberglass pole.
Lineman Chris Blackmon ties one end of a polypropylene Spectra line to a throw-weight, which he places into the slingshot’s pouch. Then he sets the base of the pole at an angle into the moist soil and aims the launcher toward the opposite side of the swamp where four other members of the crew wait.
Blackmon pulls the rubber tubing back, makes one last distance calculation and then lets it fly. It is a good shot, landing a bit short, but it gets the job done. On the opposite bank, lineman J.P. Watson watches the green line arch through the air and land in a patch of grass not far from shore.
Keeping a close eye out for snakes, he wades into the water to retrieve it. Then he ties the cord to the de-energized powerline and watches as Bryant and his men pulled it back across to the opposite shore.
The broken sections of line are soon spliced together and linemen Greg Beckum and Barett Altman strap on climbing hooks and tool belts to climb 40-foot power poles where they reattach the mended line.
Back on the ground, Beckum and Altman and the rest of the crew gather their tools, wipe sweat from their brows and return to their trucks to set out for their next challenge of the day.
A rare breed
Lineworkers are an increasingly rare breed. It is tough to find young men and women willing to endure the hardships of the job. It is, after all, one of the most dangerous professions in the country. There are the ever-present dangers of electrocution and falls while climbing power poles. Crews must follow their training, maintain and use their protective gear and keep a safety-first mindset as they go about making repairs.
The work is physically demanding and often must be performed during extended periods of intense heat, bone-numbing cold or drenching rain. Linemen need to be equally comfortable working alone or as part of a crew. And they must be able to successfully manage the inevitable stress that comes from long hours on the job while confronting and solving one challenging situation after another.
But one would be hard-pressed to find any among them who would trade in his hard hat and tool belt for a job riding a desk.
“I would not trade this job for any other,” says Lex Gandy, 49, a lineman who has worked for Pee Dee Electric for the last quarter century. “The money is good; don’t get me wrong. But I think I can speak for my whole crew when I say that helping people is what makes us get up in the morning and do this.”
Getting the lights back on
Chris Carter stands shirtless, surveying a stream that has overflowed and eaten away so much of the dirt road leading to his house that he fears his car will not be able to pass through.
Carter and his neighbors have now been without power for three days and even a generator used to keep their freezer operating had stopped working the day before. Carter, 36, an IT engineer with the Chesterfield County School District in Cheraw, is starting to lose hope when Lex Gandy arrives in his fully loaded, 20,000-pound bucket truck. Not wanting to chance getting his big rig stuck, Gandy parks just short of the flooded stream.
Grateful to see the lineman, Carter happily loans him a mud-splattered ATV so Gandy can follow the powerline right-of-way across a field and into a stand of timber where he eventually finds the problem. Wind had ripped a tree from its moorings and it had fallen onto the powerline, which sags under its weight.
As post-hurricane problems go, this is an easy fix. Gandy had brought with him a rope, one end of which he tosses up and over one part of the tree. Then he secures the other end of the rope to the ATV, climbs back onto the seat of the vehicle and slowly edges forward until the tree drops to the ground.
Minutes later, electricity once again surges through the line.
Carter returns to his house and switches on the lights with a satisfied smile.
No two are the same
When he was hired at PDEC, Gandy’s first job was to drive from house to house reading power meters. Most of the homes were in rural areas and he quickly learned shortcuts through the woods, and gradually came to know the number and location of every power pole in his territory. If he was on duty and got a call from a dispatcher alerting him to a problem at a power pole with a particular number, Gandy could, in his mind, visualize the house that was closest to that pole.
“I could drive straight to it,” he says, pointing at random to a pole with a series of silver metal identification numbers attached near its base.
That ability is still useful to Gandy today as he and his colleagues travel from one area to another to help restore electricity.
When checking areas that have lost power, linemen patrol long stretches of right-of-way looking for downed power lines, some of which spark fires that scorch the earth and leave marks that will last for weeks. Other times, it is nothing more than a tree that has fallen into the wires.
But there are times when a loss of power can be traced to something far more interesting.
“One night, we had a huge wind storm and one of those big aluminum car shelters had blown away and wrapped itself around a transformer,” Gandy says, as he noses his bucket truck through maybe a foot of water that crosses a highway from the overflowing Black Creek. “I’ve seen trampolines in wind storms get wrapped up in our wire. And one time, a car hit a power pole 2 feet in diameter and broke it off. The car just kept on going.”
On one occasion some years ago, Gandy says he showed up to check on a power outage only to find a series of power poles without any wire in sight.
“It turned out that a crop duster spraying an adjacent field had flown too low and hit the wires,” Gandy says. “He just flew off—and took the lines with him.”
Sometimes when thunderstorms roll through the region, a multitude of lightning strikes can hammer PDEC’s service area and knock out power to thousands of businesses and private homes. Animals, too, frequently find their way onto dangerous parts of substations and suffer fatal encounters with power lines that, in turn, lead to extended power outages.
“It’s sort of like what Forrest Gump said,” says Gandy, smiling while making reference to the iconic film. “A power outage is like a box of chocolates. No two are the same. There is always something just a little bit different about each one.”
A beacon of hope
When line crews hit the road on the Sunday after Hurricane Florence passed through the area, about 13,500 PDEC customers were without power. By the end of the day, that number had dropped to about 1,300, and by Monday evening, it had dropped to less than 100. Those darkened homes that remained were in locations likely cut off because of roads made impassable by high water. But soon they would restore power to those homes, too.
As linemen work the back roads of the Pee Dee, customers—especially those living in places where power has been out for several days—routinely ask how much longer it will be until their lights will be turned back on.
The linemen, fully aware of the stressful and inconvenient situation in which co-op members have found themselves, always take time to explain that they are working as swiftly as possible and, if they are able, will give their best estimate as to when the repairs might be completed.
One evening just after dark, as lineman Allen Kinsaul is returning to co-op headquarters after a grueling day of more than a dozen hours on the job, a man on the side of the road flags him down.
“Any idea how much longer the power will be out?” asks the man, whose idling car is parked nearby. “I’m getting ready to go get a motel room, but if the lights will be back on soon I’ll just wait it out.”
Kinsaul uses his cell phone to contact the crew working the area where the man lives. When he finishes his call, Kinsaul tells the man that power will be restored shortly.
The man’s face lights up, the good news very possibly conjuring up thoughts of a hot shower and the hum of an air conditioner lulling him to sleep after a hot meal.
“That’s great to hear,” the man says. “You just saved me from paying for a night in a motel. I really appreciate it.”
And with that, Kinsaul bids the man a good evening. He turns his truck around and heads toward Darlington. The sky lights up with sheet lightning and the surface of the road glistens with rain.
Kinsaul knows there is still plenty of work left to be done and that he and other members of his crew will be back at it first thing the next morning.
It is all just part of the job.
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So you want to be a lineman …
Serving as a cooperative lineworker is an extremely rewarding career path for those who have the physical and mental abilities to serve their neighbors in the toughest circumstances.
Pre-apprentice training through South Carolina’s technical colleges is the best first step, says Todd Carter, vice president of loss control and training for The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina. Certificate programs teach students the basic skills and tools of the trade, and they provide the best opportunity to earn a commercial driver’s license (CDL). The combination of training and a CDL puts graduates “head and shoulders above other applicants” for entry-level apprentice lineworker jobs, Carter says.
Once hired, lineworkers never stop training. It takes five to seven years of on-the-job experience and classroom instruction to qualify as a journeyman lineworker. Pre-apprentice training is currently York Technical College (yorktech.edu), Trident Technical College (tridenttech.edu) and Horry-Georgetown Technical College (hgtc.edu).
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Returning the favor
When Hurricane Florence churned across the state in mid-September, 627 volunteer lineworkers from co-ops in Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, Louisiana, Georgia and Arkansas loaded up their trucks and drove to South Carolina to help make repairs in record time.
A few weeks later, South Carolina’s co-ops had a chance to return the favor. When Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Florida Panhandle as a powerful Category 4 storm, it left a trail of destruction across Florida and Georgia before passing through South Carolina and sweeping along the east coast to Virginia. The Palmetto State escaped the worst of the fast-moving storm’s fury, and once co-op crews had repaired the damage at home, they headed out to assist the states that weren’t as lucky. Ninety-one lineworkers from Aiken, Berkeley, Blue Ridge, Black River, Coastal, Edisto, Fairfield, Newberry, Little River, Marlboro, Palmetto and Tri-County electric cooperatives assisted co-ops in Georgia, where nearly 130,000 were left without power in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
Another 22 lineworkers from Laurens, Pee Dee, and Santee electric cooperatives traveled to Virginia to help restore power to tens of thousands of co-op members affected by Michael.
“We have a dedicated group of co-ops willing to help out our neighbors when they come calling,” says Todd Carter, vice president of loss control and training at The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, the state association of electric cooperatives. “These states have helped us tremendously over the last few storms, and now it’s our turn.”