During the summer I heard that Westar was sending some crews to Louisiana to help with the power outage after one of the hurricanes. It brought back memories of the ice storm and all the crews that came into town to help Hutchinson get their lights back on in 07-08.
Blue Spruce was out of power for 5 days and that was really hard to deal with but we had it better than some. We had two Kerosun heaters to warm the house up during the day and then we would shut them out at night and let the house cool down all night. It only dropped down into the upper 60’s overnight so it was tolerable and if necessary we could have cooked on the top of them.
I drove by the Nazarene Church on North Monroe every day and could see all the trucks from other states sitting on the parking lot. The power crews slept in the church at night. I don’t know how they stood the cold when they were working out in it all day and night to get the power going for our area. These men worked tirelessly to help out total strangers so we could have our power turned back on as fast as possible.
During the 5 days without electricity I brought home our meals, but we had to go back into town to my work place when we needed to take a shower. It was a cold ride home because the pickup took almost the whole drive home to warm up.
My husband spent the 5 days we were without power at home keeping the kerosene heaters going and cleaning up the limbs that were down in the yard. He filled up one of the large dumpsters they roll off a large truck. The dumpster completely covered one side of the driveway.
On our 5th day without power, I came home at noon to bring my husband lunch and at the south entrance of our addition was a large truck from a North Carolina power company. It was blocking the north bound lane of Monroe that I was driving on. I was so glad to see them getting into our neighborhood that I had to stop and talk to the flagman that was standing in the middle of the road.
I was a little shocked when I pulled up even with him that he took a few steps back away from the car instead of stepping towards me to talk to me. But I dismissed it, thinking he was afraid I was going to hit him with the car.
After stopping and rolling down the window I shouted at him, because he was still standing a little tentatively a few yards away from the car, that I was sure happy to see them. He said that if everything went as they thought it would that they would have our lights on by mid afternoon.
I told him I was really happy to hear that, and that it was like an early Christmas present to have power again. True to his word the power came on in the addition by mid afternoon and the house was warm and we could cook that night. We could take a shower at home and the sump pump was working again. Unfortunately the power was not on in time to save everything in the refrigerator or the freezer in the garage, but we could live with that to have the luxury of heat and lights and to watch television again.
About a week later I heard they had about all the power on in the county and that a lot of the crews were heading home since it was just 4 days before Christmas. As I drove home from work that night, I saw the same truck sitting on the church parking lot along with a couple others from the same power company in North Carolina. They were the only ones left at the church that evening.
I had written a thank you card for them and was glad to find them still there. I slammed on the brakes and turned into the parking lot and drove to where the truck was parked on the southwest corner of the lot. I pulled up between the trucks and standing beside the one that was sitting closest to the street was the flagman that I had talked to.
As the car rocked to a stop, he took a couple of steps back and bumped into the side of the truck. The door was open, because he had been talking to the driver and he also bumped into him as he sat there with his feet on the step. I thought the flagman was going to jump into the truck. He had a look of fear or concern on his face.
When I opened the door and jumped out and started around the front of the car he tried to back up even more. I was really surprised how nervous he appeared to be when he was over 6 foot tall and probably 250 pounds.
As I extended my hand with the card in it he looked even more nervous, so I told him I just wanted to thank them for coming to Hutchinson and getting our lights and heat on so fast and how much we appreciated it. I also had a bag of home made cookies for the crew. He finally gave me a smile and thanked me for the card and the cookies and handed them to the driver of the truck.
I asked him if they were going to get home for Christmas and he said they were leaving the next day and would be home Christmas Eve. He then told me why he had acted so funny when I had stopped to talk to him both times.
He said in other towns that they had gone to help after hurricanes and other disasters people were not as nice to them. He said they would cuss at them and call them names and ask why they were taking so long to do the job. He said the Hutchinson and Reno County residents had been the nicest people they had ever worked around.
I hope we will remember the winter of 2007-08 if we ever need out of state crews in town again to help get our power back on and that we thank them every chance we get. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
