PADUCAH — Crews with Paducah Power System are “hard at work” in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, to aid in recovery efforts after Hurricane Milton. They’re working to restore power to about 7,000 of the utility’s more than 30,000 customers.
Andrea Underwood, director of human resources and community relations at Paducah Power System, explained the mutual benefit of the organizational system that aims to help other utilities recover from natural disasters and other cases of widespread outages.
“Within each state, there is an organizational system for providing mutual aid. So for instance, in Kentucky, all of the municipal utilities like us, we all have contact. We have a network,” Underwood said. “And so whenever there’s a utility somewhere, say, in the south that needs assistance, they put the call out to the point person in Kentucky, they spread the word, and we volunteer to go.”
Crews may meet each other at educational workshops or seminars, which builds relationships among crews from different areas.
Underwood explained that, while the mutual aid system is especially helpful in times of need after hurricanes, crews often don’t have to travel far to provide impactful help.
“We helped for several weeks in Mayfield, after the tornado there, and then we provide assistance to each other, right here in our own backyard,” she said. “If there’s a storm that comes through and you know, another utility needs a little bit more assistance, then we’ll send crews to help, and they’ll do that for us too.”
Underwood mentioned that with the connections made through the mutual aid system, the utilities are often able to help each other with shortages in equipment in their warehouses.
Ultimately, Underwood said mutual aid system creates an industry where crews “lean on each other.”
“We help each other with mutual aid, and also just on a regular basis,” she said. “So it really is an industry where we lean on each other and help each other, because we are serving the community, and there really are no borders to community.”
While the Paducah Power System crew doesn’t have a firm return date yet, Underwood expects them stay in New Smyrna Beach for a few more days before they head home.
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