Gulf Power Crews Head Toward Winter Storm

January 23, 2016

While much of the East Coast deals with the impact of Winter Storm Jonas, Gulf Power storm crews deployed to North Carolina to prepare for possible widespread outages due to the storm that is expected to dump anywhere from 18-24 inches of snow from Virginia to Washington D.C.

Crews and support staff from Gulf Power left Friday to help Duke Energy should their customers experience outages due to ice and heavy snow. The crews headed out from various locations about noon Friday  including Pine Forest, Milton, Crestview and Panama City.

“This is a monster storm with power crews along the Mid-Atlantic states already preparing for ice by cutting limbs down over power lines,” said Rick DelaHaya, Gulf Power spokesperson. “Our crews are very experienced at storm restoration and we are always happy to help other utilities in the face of a major storm. While we don’t train in the cold weather and snow, our customers benefit as our crews are able to hone their skills should anything happen back here at home. This is what we do — restore power and hope, whether right here at home or for our neighbors.”

The last time Gulf Power storm crews deployed was in July 2015 to help sister company Alabama Power after severe storms swept through the area leaving more than 35,000 customers without power in the state, including 23,000 in the Birmingham metro area.

Comments

4 Responses to “Gulf Power Crews Head Toward Winter Storm”

  1. David Huie Green on January 27th, 2016 2:16 pm

    I’m pretty sure the companies reimburse each other for the expenses bit even then we all benefit.
    They don’t have to work enough people to cover worst case scenarios and that saves money.
    They don’t have people sitting around all month doing nothing and that keeps their skills up to date when needed.

    David for a better world

  2. One of them on January 23rd, 2016 12:33 pm

    People do it everyday and most don’t get a dime. They are your volunteer firefighters.

  3. Harold Wilkinson on January 23rd, 2016 12:27 pm

    Since the April 29, 2015 flooding of Escambia County, in collaboration with BRACE and Unitied Way, we have seen various volunteer-organizations (Southern Baptist, Florida Baptist, Samaritan’s Purse, United Methodist Nomads, Mennonites, Catholic and Lutheran Charities, FEMA NCCC teams — to mention a few) make multiple trips into Escambia. They helped in making 700+ homes clean, safe and secure for local families who were unable to obtain their own funding and/or local support in recovery of their homes.

  4. Sage 2 on January 23rd, 2016 9:41 am

    Just a thought. If people were to come to others assistance in the time of an emergency as do the various electric companies,…?

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