While dangerous floodwaters and the immersion of New Orleans stay in the headlines, thousands of residents in coastal Mississippi are still in the dark. At Coast Electric Power Association more than 30,000 utility poles were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina; as of Sept. 15 the cooperative still had 8,000 members without power and 5,000 utility poles awaiting repair.
"It took 65 years to build our system, then in one stormy night it was all washed away,'' said Robert Occhi, Coast Electric General Manager.
Four GreyStone Power crews with a total of 17 men joined 2,000 linemen from 19 states as far away as Delaware to assist in power restoration at Coast Electric. Seventy of GreyStone’s contract employees from Pike Electric have also been released by GreyStone and are working in the area. For the last three weeks, GreyStone linemen have been working a mile from the gulf in Bay St. Louis and Waveland, MS.
“The first half mile off the beach there’s total devastation,” said Kenny Wylie, one of GreyStone’s linemen who volunteered to help rebuild the lines. “We saw one tree house in an oak tree -- nothing else was standing. There’s just lumber, twisted lumber. Everything’s gone. There are remnants of a house sitting on some railroad tracks, and the tracks look like a snake. It’s unbelievable.”
Half of Coast Electric’s 215 employees don’t have homes left – 70 were totally destroyed, the rest left uninhabitable. But the employees are still working to get power back on, despite losing everything.
“It’s amazing. People had nice homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Wylie said. “Now they have a $12 Wal-Mart tent set up in front of their front door. This is the first place I’ve ever been in my life where money’s no good. There’s simply nowhere to spend it.”
Wylie noted his shock that residents were left with nothing in the storm’s wake.
“You can ride down the road and find things, bits of lives that were lost,” said Wylie. “We saw a photo album in the woods – you know someone would pay a thousand bucks to get it back but there’s no way to know who it belongs to.”
Wylie, a 28 year GreyStone veteran, has helped restore power after many severe storms. But several of the volunteers from GreyStone have only been linemen for a short time; Bryn Speck joined the cooperative just over a year ago and he said the experience has changed his life.
“When you have a second to stop working and think about your surroundings, you see streets, trees and furniture piled up in ditches on the side of the road,” said Speck. “You think about what kind of a neighborhood it used to be, with kids running up and down the street. You can picture it in your head – what a nice, cozy place it used to be. Then you see it as it is. It’s shocking – it took a 180 degree turn from a nice neighborhood to something torn to pieces. It really made me appreciate what I have at home. It’s definitely something I’ll never forget. ”
The crews are working around the clock to rebuild the lines, but the effort is expected to take many more weeks, if not months.
“The National Guard are on every corner with automatic weapons, and 500 to 1,000 helicopters fly over us every day,” said Wylie. “You know you’re safe, but it’s like working in a war zone.”
While working on the mammoth power restoration effort, GreyStone’s crews are living with other linemen in a series of tents nicknamed Motel 6, 7 and 8. Trailers with showers are available, and the men are well fed.
“This is the most touching thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Wylie. “The people are being so nice to us and treating us like we’re in need – can you believe that?”
The experience has been an emotional one for Wylie, who returned home Saturday after working for ten days in Mississippi.
“I thought I was as tough as anybody. But there was a guy bigger than I was that hadn’t heard from his daughter for more than a week. Then one day he grabbed me by the arm and said he’d just heard from her, he’d found her. We both sat there with tears on our faces. I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Wylie, struggling to keep his voice steady. “You can see it on TV but it doesn’t hit home until you see their faces.”
The first wave of GreyStone volunteers left Georgia Aug. 31 to help in Mississippi. They are Wylie, Eddie Elrod, Billy Vaughan, Steve Jenkins, Andre Reed, Chris Brown, John Timms, Keith Bailey, Chris Gibson, Albert Morris, Tony Brown, Adam Gurley, Travis Fambrough, Daniel Wix, Speck, Eric Taylor and Taylor Shadrix.
A second wave of GreyStone volunteers traded places on Sept. 10 with the first group. The new volunteers are Danny Giles, Bobby Lawler, Terry Queen, Todd McCoy, Patrick LeCroy, Josh Jones, Ryan Kendall, Scotty Redden, Chad McIntyre, Erik Hansek, Adam McCurdy, Julio Villegas, Clint Capes, Matt Gilbert, Scott Buchannan, Shane Crider and Jared Childers. They will work in the area for the next two weeks.
GreyStone Power plans to continue to send help to Mississippi, then Louisiana if needed as the areas recover from Hurricane Katrina. Employees are also helping in other ways. A toy drive was held at GreyStone last week so that linemen can distribute toys to children at Coast Electric. GreyStone’s linemen canceled their participation in the International Lineman’s Rodeo this fall, choosing instead to volunteer in Mississippi. The funds set aside for the rodeo will go instead to the cooperative families who lost everything in the storm.
GreyStone is collecting donations to help the families of 70 Coast Electric employees who lost everything during the storm. Donations are tax-deductible, and checks should be written to: Katrina Relief Fund/GreyStone Power Foundation. Please mail your donation to GreyStone Power Katrina Relief Fund, P.O. Box 897, Douglasville, GA 30133.
“GreyStone linemen are restoring power in the coastal Mississippi area. Through your donations you can help restore lives,” said Gary Miller, President/CEO of GreyStone Power.
