‘I felt like we were actually helping’ – Robert Fritts

Destruction everywhere.

That is what La Follette Utility Board (LUB) employees saw when they went to Florida to clean up storm damage.

“On our way there, we carved a path the last 100-miles to Blountstown, Fla.  If we needed to cut it out of the road, we cut it.  If we needed move it out of the road, we moved it.  There was total destruction everywhere you turned,” Bryan Templin, a 25-year utility veteran with LUB told WLAF upon arriving home Wednesday night.

Two-weeks ago this morning, seven LUB crew members left for hurricane ravaged Florida.  Tiny Blountstown, with its population of 2,500, was one of the hardest hit areas and where the eye of the ‘cane came through.  It sits mid-way between Panama City and Tallahassee about 50 miles north of Mexico Beach and the Gulf of Mexico.

Templin and Robert Fritts took time on Thursday to share some thoughts about their 12 day experience.  Five others from LUB also made the trip; Blake McCullah, Mike Owens, Brad Ivey, Jordan McDeerman and Brandon Shown.

Fritts thumbs through the photos you can SEE HERE.

“Remember how that area up the valley looked after the 2014 tornado?  That’s how it looked everywhere where we were in Florida,” said Fritts.  He’s been with LUB for 22-years and has never seen anything on that scale.

LUB General Manager Kenny Baird estimates  the cost of sending the LUB Seven to Blountstown is north of $100,000.  That includes mostly labor and material, at cost, that will be paid by Blountstown.

Baird considers this just one more way that LUB can show that it is indeed here to serve.  This effort went well beyond the borders of its service area.

Baird and Darrell Leach, supervisor of Electrical Operations, were scheduled to travel to Florida earlier this week to take supplies to the crew.  But ended up not going since the crew planned to return home on Wednesday.

ACCOMMODATIONS:

The LUB Seven was housed at the Blountstown Middle School.  They slept on hot cots and took cold showers in the girls’ locker room.  Working days ran from 5:30 am until well after dark and didn’t leave much time for shut eye.  Though a local homeowner did allow them to take hot showers a couple of times along the way, and the last two nights were spent in a church.  The church’s steeple was hanging off the side of the building.

There was one utility volunteer from Cookeville who was quite the unpopular bunk mate.  Templin (L) played a recording of the big man’s very loud snoring for Baird.

Many breakfasts generally consisted of smoked wieners.  Chicken or barbecue was often lunch most days, and that usually served as supper, too.  Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches was a treat a few times.  Appreciative residents offered food and water along the way.

WORKING CONDITIONS:

Templin said there were many days where the Heat Index, the feels-like temperature, was 100-degrees or higher.  Cellphone service was non-existent with the only way to get a signal was near the mobile site at the courthouse in town.  They set, straightened, put wire for countless utility poles as 85 to 95 percent of the poles and wires were on the ground.

AROUND TOWN:

There was a 6 pm curfew, and every place of business had armed guards. Only police and utility volunteers were out after curfew. Police accompanied the LUB Seven on several occasions.

Locals were living in homes with trees through them.  On streets where there were only one or two houses still standing, many of the others from homes that had been destroyed were living with them.  There were destroyed homes with campers in the yard where the homeowners are now living.

Of all of those who rode out the hurricane and were asked by the LUB Seven if they would do it again, only one of them said they would.  It was an old man who said he was not going to leave his home.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED:

There were no injuries nor health issues for the Tennessee Volunteers.  Fritts calls it a good experience, and Templin said he would go back.  The LUB Seven did all it could with what it had.

When Fritts, Templin and the rest of the LUB Seven left for home on Wednesday morning, more than 90% of the power to Blountstown was back on.

Though Fritts said the devastating look wasn’t a whole lot different when they left.  (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 10/26/2018-6AM)