My fellow members,
Colquitt EMC continues to work diligently at restoring power throughout our system. Contract crews have arrived and began working alongside our crews. Unfortunately, many of our substations are still offline. We have been in contact with GTC and Georgia Power and are eagerly waiting for those substations to be back up and running.
I would like to take a moment to discuss the nature of the work that our personnel are up against. Under normal circumstances, we expect our outside personnel to work an average of 50 hours a week in either line construction/maintenance or right-of-way maintenance. The jobs that these workers perform are hazardous and require concentration and much thought about safety to complete their work safely. Now imagine, instead of 50 hours a week, we are asking these same workers to perform their duties for 115 hours a week. Imagine the difficult scenarios these workers must perform under. Imagine performing the same work in adverse weather and site conditions. These workers are navigating debris, tangled lines, deep water, downed trees, and so much more. Many places are inaccessible to bucket trucks, so they have to climb each pole to perform work. As one of our line crew foremen said earlier today, “We worked for two hours and only went 600 feet.”
We ask so much of these individuals under normal circumstances. During storm restoration efforts, we ask for so much more. It truly takes a special individual to be able to do this job under all these adverse conditions. As an employee of Colquitt EMC and as a member I am truly grateful for the dedication of all our employees and the effort that they give to our EMC with regards to customer service.
We thank you again for your patience and prayers. We will not stop working until power is restored to all. We will provide another update tomorrow morning.
Sincerely,
Danny Nichols
President/CEO