Out in the truck yard, crews are collecting. A hand-painted sign says “ Safety meeting at 6am.” Some crews are getting their work assignments as a foreman shows up with maps of a feeder circuit with areas to be worked already marked out. I listen in on one conversation being held with the dispatcher:

“Can you get me two crews? No, one really isn’t enough. We really need two crews. I want one to go with us and one to go with Greg.”

I introduced myself to Skip Hay. “We’ve been assigned a feeder to work and we are getting the details ironed out before we head out.”

I wandered over to the personal effects supply trailer and climbed in. Dalton Harvey and David Bridger were manning the trailer. Matthew Bingham, working for contractor Jeff Graves, walked up and asked, “Got any Claritin?” Matthew was down from Farmers Branch outside Houston, and his allergies were kicking up.

Next up, another line worker, asked, “Got any Rolaids?”

The next lineman needed shaving cream, stating, “It’s the only thing I forgot.”

The next request cracked me up! “You got any liquid adrenaline?” We just stared at him and then stared at ourselves. He clarified, “I’d like a pack of Marlboro.”

I hadn’t seen a personal effects trailer at a staging area before, but Dalton has quite a list of what the line workers need, having served in supplies in quite a number of storms. He and Matthew could meet just about any typical request. They had aspirin, gloves, bug spray, gloves, sun screen, band aids. Just about anything you’d need. And if you are in boots for 14 hours a day for weeks on end, band aids can move from a nicety to a necessity.

Photos:



Dalton Harvey and David Bridger stock and man the personal affects supply trailer.

Fighting allergies, line worker Matthew Bingham requests something to help that is non-drowsy.

1:30 p.m.

A line of about 20 cars had formed on Highway 69 in Alto, Texas. I stopped to check it out. Volunteers were handing out Chef Minute Meals, water and ice. They had just received them from the Texas Department of Emergency Management and expected that everything except the ice would be handed out today. The 10 or 12 volunteers were all from the city of Alto and were loading up cars pretty quickly. There are about 1600 people in Alto without power and water, and maybe twice that many in the surrounding counties.

I talked to the Alto chief of police, Charles Barron, and he said that he’d requested help from the county coordinator, who then got in contact with the state Department of Emergency Management. I asked Charles if I could take his picture and he said, “Sure, if you want a picture of a very tired man.”

Charles and I walked over to Alto resident Tressie Brooks’ car and he asked, “How are things down in the flats?” And she said, “We ain’t got no power.” Then I asked her how important it was that she had the ice and food, and she said, “Thank God for this.”

1:30 a.m.

Driving down Interstate 35, I was talking on my cell phone with my buddy Gene Wolf. Gene was relaying the disastrous situation affecting the residents of Texas in the Galveston to Houston Corridor. I was washed over with this incredible sense of sadness: the same sadness I experienced in 2005 when I saw things while covering Katrina that I’ve never managed to speak about.

Gene said early reports predicted some sections of Houston would be without power for a month–not that I have much confidence in the mainstream press. When covering Katrina, I personally witnessed reporters from one of the national news channels faking a rescue. That ticked me off, along with everyone else standing on the 17th Street Viaduct. They were booed roundly, but the reporters took no notice, willing to do anything to get their precious video byte. So, more than ever, I take unsubstantiated media predictions and statements with a grain of salt – which is one of the reasons I’m headed down first hand to cover restoration efforts.

I traded e-mails yesterday with Bill Herdgen with Kansas City Power & Light. Bill, the VP of distribution, suggested I bring my waders with me because his crews were told they might be working in an area of the CenterPoint Energy service territory where flooding was bad.

Now I am not the fastest (or best) driver, but I did catch the KCP&L contingent rumbling down I-35 near the Kansas/Oklahoma Border. My sadness was washed away by the pride I felt as I counted 25 line and bucket trucks, one pole truck, a mobile command center and the requisite pickup trucks fore and aft of the convoy. I zoomed ahead, then stopped to photograph the vehicles going by. I felt hair standing on end as the linemen bumped their horns in greeting, and a feeling of pride displaced the mood of sadness. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tony Laughlin were leading the contingent as he did in 2005 (when I found his crew restoring Katrina-lost power to a neighborhood in Jackson, Mississippi).

Herdegen promised to call and give me the location of his KCP&L crews when they get their work assignment, and I’ll give you an update if and when I find them.

I stopped at the welcome center at Kansas/Oklahoma border and talked with manager Janelle Skags from the great state of Oklahoma. Janell said she’d seen convoys of line trucks coming down I-35 all morning, and indeed all weekend, headed south to help out.

I’ll call an end to this dispatch as I hit the road, hoping to land in Dallas by dark. Tomorrow I hope to cover restoration efforts at Dallas-based Oncor. My buddy Jim Greer, the VP of delivery provided me with his cell number and the number of the trouble center.

But when covering storm restoration, planning can be an exercise in futility. I’ll take each hour as it comes and share the experiences of our line workers as they tackle the jobs they are wired to do.

Signing off,

Rick Bush