Wiregrass Electric Cooperative crews return home safely after assisting in North Carolina

Matt Boster

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Posted by: Matt Boster
Date: Sep 22 2018 10:52 AM

HARTFORD, Alabama — All 13 Wiregrass Electric Cooperative linemen returned home safely Friday night after assisting with restoration efforts in North Carolina following Hurricane Florence.

The linemen spent six days assisting Lumbee River EMC which serves more than 52,000 members in Cumberland, Hoke, Robeson and Scotland counties with over 77,000 power poles, spanning more than 5,600 miles across eastern North Carolina.

WEC assisted in restoring more than 3,000 outage cases.

“We are very proud of the great job that our crews did this past week,” says Chief Operating Officer Brad Kimbro. “This was a perfect example of our cooperative principles being put into action by neighbor helping neighbor. These linemen spent time away from their families and worked in difficult circumstances but they did it because they wanted to help. The people affected by this storm are going through a difficult time with flooding and damage from the storm. We hope the work our cooperative did to restore power helped ease their burden.

“We appreciate all the prayers for our crews and are happy they are all home safely.”

The crews left early on Sunday, Sept. 16 and then returned home late on Friday, Sept. 22.

Kimbro says that it was a total team effort by all WEC linemen.

“We are very proud of our linemen who went, but also proud of our linemen who stayed back here as well,” Kimbro says. “Those that stayed had to double up and cover everything while our 13 were away. It was truly a team effort by our linemen and all of our employees.”

Electric cooperatives affected by the storm called on crews from across the country to assist in restoring electric service. The Alabama Rural Electric Association (AREA) coordinated assistance from the 20 electric cooperatives in Alabama.

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