A team of eight employees from Plateau Electric Cooperative are assisting with Hurricane Laura relief efforts in southwest Louisiana.
Laura made landfall Thursday morning as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 mph. One of the hardest-hit areas was the Lake Charles area, along with nearby Jennings, La.
Eight employees from PEC left Tennessee early Friday morning to offer assistance to Jeff Davis Electric Cooperative (JDEC) in Jennings, La.
“Our crews were ready and willing to go help,” said Dave Cross, Plateau Electric CEO. “With the amount of damage that was brought on this area, they are going to need all the help they can get.”
The initial assessment was that over 1,000 utility poles were broken and 100% of JDEC’s 11,000-plus members were without power. Half of the employees of the electrical cooperative were unable to travel to work in the aftermath of the storm due to the amount of flooding and wind damage that was done. Two of JDEC’s employees lost their homes in the storm.
“We are very fortunate to live in the area we do and other than a minor wind storm here and there we don’t have to worry about anything of this magnitude,” Cross said.
Michael Heinen, general manager of JDEC, said the amount of damage caused by Hurricane Laura exceeded even that caused by Hurricane Rita, the monster storm that slammed the northwest Gulf Coast in September 2005.
“The recovery and rebuilding effort will take time,” he said. “Laura’s storm surge was significant, and the extreme floodwaters will complicate the restoration process.”
Bryan Foster, operations supervisor at Plateau Electric, said the local crews would be housed in temporary tent structures with limited capacity due to Covid-19 restrictions.
“During most of your major weather events, this is how your first responders, relief workers, et cetera are living,” Foster said. “Our crews along with the other utilities will probably work a minimum of 16 hours a day and we try to rotate our crews after about two weeks in a storm of this size.”
Early indications were that it could be a month or more before some structures can have power restored.
Since 2016, PEC has sent crews to assist with power restoration efforts from four major storms from Florida to Virginia: Hurricane Matthew, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael.
“During these times of catastrophic damage, it is all hands on deck,” Cross said. “We are in a position to be able to offer our services where they are needed the most and in the event we have a major weather event affecting our system, we know that we will have help waiting for us.”
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September 01, 2020 at 03:51AM
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Plateau Electric crews assist with Hurricane Laura recovery in Louisiana - Independent Herald
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