ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
In late September, after forming in the western Caribbean Sea and approaching Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, a tropical storm received the name Hurricane Helene from the National Hurricane Center.
Sept. 26, Helene made landfall at peak intensity in the Big Bend region of Florida with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. The hurricane would weaken as it moved inland before degenerating to a post-tropical cyclone over Tennessee Sept. 27, where it would stall before dissipating Sept. 29.
The storm caused catastrophic flooding, particularly in western North Carolina, East Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, and spawned numerous tornadoes, leaving more than 200 deaths in its wake.
As much of the South continues to recover from Helene, much in the way of cleanup work is being done, and this includes turning power back on for much of the region.
Locally, Southern Pioneer Electric recently dispatched a team of seven linemen along with necessary equipment to assist Aiken Electric Cooperative in South Carolina with hurricane restoration efforts following the impact of Helene.
“We’re not exactly starting from scratch, but we’re replacing poles, putting the wires back up and hooking services back up to the transformers,” Southern Pioneer Manager of Engineering and Operations Nate Gillespie said.
Aiken Electric is headquartered in Aiken, S.C., and serves 50,000 members across a nine-county service area. The cooperative reported extensive storm damage, with more than 92 percent of the system experiencing an outage and significant infrastructure impacts, including downed power lines and damaged poles.
Southern Pioneer was joined by 80 additional lineworkers from the Kansas Electric Cooperatives, who have also been deployed to support the rebuild.
Gillespie said this collective effort is part of mutual aid agreements to provide critical assistance to fellow cooperatives during severe weather events.
“They called for help,” he said. “Since we’re tied in with the co-op network, we’re part of the mutual aid network. Each state, when you have an event like that, will put out calls for help. People have always helped out in the past, and we always try to help out when we can.”
In addition to Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, Helene likewise struck parts of Kentucky and West Virginia. Gillespie said the hurricane was a massive storm which left extremely wide damage in its wake.
He added, though, the storm has subsided, allowing cleanup crews to start the process of getting residents back to their everyday lives.
“They come through, do their damage, and then it’s up to fixing everything they damaged,” he said. “It was such a wide spread storm. We’re lucky out here. We just have to deal with tornadoes or things that don’t affect a wide area. A hurricane will affect hundreds of miles.”
As of Tuesday, Gillespie said power had been restored to 82 percent of Aiken Electric’s coverage area. Many stories have been put out saying electric workers have been treated poorly during the recovery effort from Helene, but Gillespie said the Southern Pioneer crews have had no complaints.
“Everybody out there is very thankful they’re there helping,” he said. “Living conditions aren’t the best. They’re all living in a giant tent city. It’s a giant tent full of cots, but when somebody goes through something like that, you suck it up for a little while and do what you can to help them.”
Gillespie said helping cleanup efforts in an area several states away is just part of what the people of Southern Pioneer and other electrical cooperatives do.
“It’s huge knowing people out there are willing to come help when you have a disaster like that,” he said. “We’ve had it on our sister system with giant ice storms and snow storms. I hope it never happens here in Liberal or affects us, but it makes you feel good knowing you can rely on people to show up when you need help.”
