Members of some area electric cooperatives have arrived to help with Hurricane Michael relief efforts in Florida.
According to a news release, the 123 linemen from 23 of Missouri’s electric cooperatives are at work restoring power to those affected. The crews had to cut their way into the final approaches to Talquin Electric Cooperative, one of the Florida electric cooperatives that was near the center of the storm.
Workers from several area cooperatives are helping in the effort, including from Central Missouri Electric Cooperative in Sedalia; West Central Electric Cooperative in Higginsville; and Co-Mo Electric Cooperative in Tipton.
After a thorough safety briefing, they were assigned “bird dogs,” employees of the local cooperative who will be their guides as they work in the storm-ravaged area. As the storm passed through the cooperative’s service area near Tallahassee, nearly all of the cooperative’s 55,000 members were without power. Talquin suffered severe damage to its distribution and transmission lines, complicating restoration efforts.
Today, the outage numbers have been reduced to 48,000. The region has a lot of trees, which were tossed into lines by the strong storm. Photos from the scene show a tangle of wire, broken poles and trees that will have to be cleared before lines can be replaced.