Alabama Power crews are enroute to Texas and Louisiana to assist utilities restore service in the wake of Hurricane Laura, a devastating storm that made landfall early this morning in western Louisiana.
About 350 Alabama Power team members from across the state, including line crews and support personnel, departed crew headquarters Thursday morning. Crew foreman Jason Wood says his crew was eager to help crews in other states.
“These guys come and help us when something happens,” Wood said. “We’re returning the favor to go help them in their time of need.”
Hurricane Laura made landfall early Thursday in Cameron, LA, about 45 miles south of Lake Charles, as a dangerous Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph. Heavy rains and dangerous winds battered western Louisiana and eastern Texas as the storm pushed northward.
“As we wake up today, everyone must remember that the threat Laura poses to Louisiana is ongoing,” Lousiana Gov. John Bel Edwards tweeted Thursday morning. “Stay home, continue to heed the warnings and instructions of local officials and monitor your local news to stay informed.”
As of 9 a.m. Thursday, more than 625,000 electric customers were without power in Texas and Louisiana, according to power-outage tracking website power outage.us.
Thursday’s deployment comes one week after Alabama Power crews returned home from assisting utilities in Illinois and New Jersey. More than 200 line workers and support personnel traveled to New Jersey in early August to assist utility FirstEnergy in its response to the damage caused by Tropical Storm Isaias. More than 1 million New Jersey residents were affected by the tropical storm.
A week later the crews traveled from New Jersey to Illinois to assist Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) with restoring service following a violent derecho –a swift-moving thunderstorm system –that tore through the Midwest. Alabama Power crews replaced 58 poles, more than 300 spans of wire and 35 transformers to restore power to more than 5,000 customers near Chicago
This story via Alabama NewsCenter
