MONDAY, SEPT. 20, 2004

Crews sent to Florida to help restore power after Ivan

After two weeks of repeated hits by storms, GreyStone Power Corporation members are back on line and the Cooperative is sending crews to Florida to help restore electricity after the chaos caused by Hurricane Ivan.

On Monday morning two six-man crews and a coordinator were dispatched from GreyStone’s headquarters in Douglasville to provide aid to Escambia River Electric Cooperative (EREC) in Florida. The utility, located near Pensacola, lost power to all of their 10,000 members during the storm last week.

Coordinator of restoration efforts is GreyStone Supervisor of Line Construction & Maintenance Frank Harrell. Crew members include Line Foremen Bobby Lawler and Eddie Elrod, Linemen Josh Jones, Brian Carden, Patrick LeCroy and Aaron Parrott, Apprentice Linemen Erik Hansek, Adam Gurley, Scott Buchanan, Matt Williams, Matt Gilbert and Justin Galloway.

Elrod, who has assisted other cooperatives after storms on 14 different occasions, is ready for the challenge.

“We’ll be building their lines back from scratch,” Elrod said. “We’ve heard that almost 80 percent of their lines are on the ground. We’re expecting 16 hour days and a lot of the land will be swamped and hard to access, but we’re ready to help.”

Last week GreyStone called in 15 contract crews from Pike Electric to help get the power back on to GreyStone members as quickly as possible after Ivan left more than 10,000 members without power.

“When you’ve got the power out it’s nice to have people come to help,” said Elrod. “If you don’t help anyone, don’t expect them to help you when you’re in need. That’s why we’re going.”