By Ken Jackson
Staff Writer

How talented is Kissimmee Utility Authority’s traveling band of line workers? They can do hurricane recovery work in a snowstorm — they’ve proven it.

A total of 15 of KUA’s best across two crews spent parts of November — one crew was there more than two weeks — restoring power in the Lehigh Valley region near Allentown, Pa. and on Long Island after Hurricane-slash-”Superstorm” Sandy roared ashore in the Northeast on Oct. 29, leaving a trail of destruction, as well as whole communities left in the dark and powerless.

The first crew left Kissimmee a day later, and reported to the Allentown area, working in chilly but sunny conditions. When released from there, they were assigned to New York to help the Long Island Power Authority restore service to some citizens who had been out of power for over a week.

And just when they thought the work was hard enough, the Nor’easter that followed on Sandy’s heels brought frigid temperatures, brisk winds, and six inches of snow, something many of these Floridians had never seen in person. The second crew eventually joined them on Long Island.

“We were here watching that next storm thinking they were about to really get it,” crew member George Blair said. “And then there we were headed right into it.”

And they still got the job done.

By the time LIPA released them to come home, the crews had spent 17 days on the detail and logged 3,000 miles of travel and 3,000 man hours of work.

“We were the last crew in at the end of every night in Pennsylvania,” line crew supervisor Logan Murphy said.

For that kind of dedication, motivated by how other crews came from out of state to help when Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne unprecedentedly plowed through the area in 2004, the KUA Board of Directors honored the 15 workers with special recognition at its meeting Wednesday.

Each worker volunteered for the duty, and the 16-hour shifts spent working in less than ideal conditions — some that had nothing to do with the weather. The KUA crews had to confirm to stringent New York utility union regulations, but said they consistently finished jobs in less time than LIPA requested when assigned, often with their own crews watching.

“It showed how we take pride in our work,” said lineman Mike Taylor. “There was one day that one of their crews came out while we were stringing wire through a tree, and I guess we got it done faster than they thought. They watched us finish the job and then drove off. They never even got out of their truck.”

Murphy said old trees and infrastructure, ill-prepared to face the conditions a tropical system like Sandy brought, were the root of the problems

“It was all wind damage and downed trees, and when the trees come down up there, everything else goes with it. It was an older system, with a lot of older poles,” he said.

The snow came from a storm that wasn’t even on the radar when the first crew left Kissimmee. Never in their wildest dreams did any on the crew imagine they’d ever be doing hurricane restoration in a snowstorm.

“We were cold and wet, and the guys were miserable by the end of the day (it snowed),” Murphy said. “We were pretty prepared going up there, but once your feet got wet and then cold, it was awful,” he said. “We went to Walmart and got some winter boots and it got much better in a hurry.”

The questionable accommodations were also memorable. In Pennsylvania, the biggest concern was having to shower in a trailer that was outside of where they bunked. But in Long Island they originally slept in a large wall tent that would eventually get ripped to shreds by the Nor’easter and its 60 mph winds.

Luckily, the KUA crew met up with a crew out of Ocala who restored power to a hotel. Murphy said he reached out to them and were able to get rooms at that hotel just in the nick of time.

“We got chased out of the tent. We went back to get our stuff and take it to the hotel, and the tent had been condemned,” he said. “If we didn’t have the hotel to go to, we would have been sleeping in the trucks that night. We realized riding up from Florida those trucks aren’t comfortable.”

Said groundman Stetson Kent of that tent, which nearly blew apart the night before: “It was the worst night of sleep in my life.”

Lineman first class David Wolfe saw the silver lining in working in winter conditions, rather than in warm and muggy Florida.

“At least there were no mosquitoes,” he joked.

The hardest part of the trip might have been getting back. The route up featured bypasses around the big cities like Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the New Jersey Turnpike corridor. They returned on the more direct route -- that included numerous tolls.

“I rode at the front and tried to pay for all the trucks at once, and some places let me do that but others we had to pay them separately,” Murphy said, meaning that he’d have to get out and take money to every truck.

Lineman Chris Ketner said some of the tollbooths let them go right through, but others ...
“They said we needed FEMA papers,” he said. “I’m like, ‘I’m in a bucket truck! What more do I need?’”

But each worker agreed that the lasting memory they’ll have of the experience would be all of the great people they met in getting the job done. Many offered gifts, which read like a collection of nice Christmas stocking stuffers: cookies, Powerball tickets, taffy, doughnuts, cigars and Pepto-Bismol and Tylenol when they weren’t feeling well. Blair said one of the crews brought back some Bonsai trees.

“Everyone was super nice, accommodating and great,” Murphy said.

Lineman first class Alberto Mercado said those people’s appreciation made the work and the rough conditions more bearable. 
“At the end of the day, it was about helping people that needed it,” he said. “Getting the power back on for people kept us going.”

The rest of the KUA detail that went north included Brent Davis, Chad Sullivan, Clay Campbell, Billy White, Joshua Miller, Jason Wright, Paul Fielitz and Rodney Rocker.

Should there be another out-of-state disaster sometime soon, other crews will take their turns in KUA’s informal pecking order and go into the front lines of it. But all 15 said they would go again at the drop of a hat.

They have just one request for Mother Nature: hold the snow.