SLEMCO is sending electric line workers to Houma to help restore power.
The co-op is sending help to the South Louisiana Electric Cooperative Association (SLECA) in Houma, to help restore power in the wake of Category 4 Hurricane Ida. They will head South on Wednesday morning at 6:30 am.
Thirty highly-skilled line workers and support staff will make the trip. SLEMCO’s relief crews will include overhead linemen, substation specialists, right-of-way tree trimmers and mechanics. They will be equipped with material handlers, digger-derricks, pole trailers, right-of-way trucks with extended booms, four-wheel drive trucks, flatbed trailers, side-by-side off-road vehicles and a mechanic truck with parts trailer.
“Our entire organization knows how blessed we are to have escaped a direct hit from Ida,” explains SLEMCO Communications Coordinator Mary Laurent. “But for 50 miles, that would have been us. We were in SLECA’s shoes last year and know how important outside help is,” she continued.
Helping each other out when your system has been spared is standard operating procedure for electric power providers. Convoys of bucket trucks crisscross the country every year during hurricane season.
“There’s no two ways about it,” said Laurent. “It’s absolutely what we do.”
SLEMCO provides electric power to 109,000 customers in Acadia, Evangeline, Iberia, Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin and Vermilion Parish.
