Road trip for restoration

When Clearwater-Polk Electric Cooperative lineworkers Travis Huot and TJ Trefz climbed into their bucket truck on Oct. 3 for a 1,500-mile drive to South Carolina, they didn’t know exactly when they’d be returning home to Bagley, Minnesota. Neither did their general manager, Deanna Lefebvre. But there was a chance they’d miss the annual member appreciation open house in two weeks, an event locally famous for Lefebvre’s made-from-scratch pie buffet.

She couldn’t let that fly.

“I made and sent with them a whole pie and a pan of apple crisp that they got all to themselves,” Lefebvre said, “so I think they came out ahead.”

With desserts in tow, the lineworkers started their journey to Clinton, South Carolina. There, they would unite with hundreds of other co-op lineworkers from around the country in assisting Laurens Electric Cooperative, which put out a call for mutual aid after Hurricane Helene tore down more than 600 of its poles and knocked out power to nearly half of its 64,000 members.

Huot and Trefz were not the lone Minnesotans making the trip. They formed a caravan with eight additional lineworkers from the Minnkota Power Cooperative system of co-ops (four from Beltrami Electric Cooperative, four from Red Lake Electric Cooperative), joining more than 15 other Minnesota co-op crews heading south. Of the approximately 600 lineworkers who would help restore power for Laurens Electric, more than 80 were from the land of 10,000 lakes.

“We only sent two guys, because we're a small co-op, and you think that you're not going to make much of a difference,” Trefz said. “But it just slowly snowballs and all of a sudden you have a fleet of 600 guys down there. That's just to help one co-op. So, it's kind of good to just be part of something bigger.”

Getting to work

The 10 Minnkota-system lineworkers spent more than two days on the road to get to Laurens County, South Carolina. As soon as they hit Tennessee, people began to recognize why they were there. “When we got through Nashville, people started giving us honks and thumbs up already,” Trefz said.

In South Carolina, the Minnesota crew got straight to work around the community of Clinton. A Laurens Electric representative served as a “bird dog” to direct them to the work site of the day. Much of the storm debris had been cleared from main roads, but the destruction lingered. The lineworkers could see the dead-grass borders where water had receded from the tops of ditches, and trees rested in places they shouldn’t.

“They were massive trees that you wouldn't think would ever fall down, that fell down everywhere – on houses, cars,” said Red Lake Electric lead lineworker Brett Knott.

The trees were tall, and so were the power poles. In many cases, the team was repairing or replacing 60-foot poles of stacked three-phase line, a full 15 feet higher than the distribution lines they were accustomed to in Minnesota. The lineworkers often had to max out the height of their bucket trucks to get the job done. There was a learning curve – or rather, a learning climb – but they were trained for it. “You learn their different ways that they do things a little bit, but it’s kind of all the same,” said Beltrami Electric journeyman lineworker Trent Berglund.

The Minnesota team also learned a bit about the local flora and fauna of South Carolina. Some right-of-way corridors were thick with greenbrier, a prickly, woody vine with unforgiving thorns that would snag the men’s clothes as they worked. And the spiders? Forget about it.

“Oh yeah, they had fangs,” Clearwater-Polk Electric’s Travis Huot remembered with a grimace. “They looked like they'd eat you.”

After 16-hour-long workdays, crews were provided a hot meal and accommodations – although the Minnesotans came prepared with tents, just in case. Breakfast and dinner were an opportunity to catch up with other co-op crews who had made their way to South Carolina.

“You just meet a lot of good people along the way,” Huot said. “With linework, essentially, everybody does stuff a little bit different, but you can sit down at the end of the day and have a meal and BS about what happened. That's kind of cool when you can do that.”

Powerful gratitude

In Laurens County, the lineworkers’ Minnesota Nice was met with southern hospitality. Even though many in the community had been without power for days, their patience and gratitude never waned. “A lot of people would stop and drop off Powerade and snacks,” said Casey Thronson, crew foreman for Red Lake Electric. “One lady made cake the one day and dropped it off,” he added, his team nodding in sweet recollection.

Other co-op members would thank the lineworkers as they crossed paths in the gas station, while still others filled social media with comments acknowledging the above-and-beyond efforts of out-of-state helpers.

“Every time we’d turn a section of line on, you could just hear them cheering,” said Beltrami Electric line foreman Ryan Rogers.

“They’d be standing on their porches, hootin’ and hollering,” added crewmate Chase Todavich.

“They’d been off for probably five, six days already,” continued Beltrami Electric foreman William Haman. “They were ready to be back on.”

When the Minnesota caravan headed back north a week later, power had been restored to nearly all of Laurens Electric’s members. It couldn’t have happened without the efforts of lineworkers from 17 states joining together under the cooperative principle of “Cooperation Among Cooperatives.”

“I know sending you off that morning kind of made me feel like I was sending my family off,” Lefebvre told Huot and Trefz upon their return. “I was just very proud of you guys.”

“Well, we appreciate the opportunity,” Trefz replied.

“Yeah,” Huot agreed. “I’ll go on the next one.”

And in case you were wondering – they did make it back in time for more pie.

MAIN IMAGE: Lineworkers from Beltrami Electric Cooperative, Red Lake Electric Cooperative and Clearwater-Polk Electric Cooperative prepare for their journey to South Carolina. (submitted photo)