The rain from Hurricane Irma hasn’t dampened the spirit of southern hospitality in Georgia, though it has reminded people not to take power for granted.
That’s according to Ryan Hobley, a Rocky Mountain Power supervisor who led a crew of 41 workers and 12 contractors east to help Georgia Power restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of Georgians.
Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida on Sunday, pummeling the state from coast to coast and producing winds up to 130 mph. From there, the storm traveled north, fanning out over other states with rain and wind that knocked out power for millions.
When crews from the Utah-based company arrived in the Atlanta area Tuesday night, Hobley said, about 480,000 people in the state had been without power almost five days. By Thursday night, an outage map on Georgia Power’s website showed the number had been reduced to fewer than 82,400 people.
Personnel from Alabama Power also joined the group, boosting the total crew size for Georgia Power to about 8,000 people Thursday. Crews have done “all types of restoration,” Hobley said, from reconnecting services to individual homes to working in areas where fallen trees had taken down power lines, utility poles and conductors.
Southern hospitality is “alive and well,” Hobley said. On Wednesday, after restoring power to one area, three children ran out from a house to wave and say “thank you” to crews. Some people also have fired up their grills and cooked food for the electrical workers, Hobley said.
“People are really appreciative,” he said. Businesses, like restaurants and dry cleaners, have stalled without electricity, Hobley added, and seeing it reminds him that “we‘re very fortunate to have power as much as we do.”
The crew, which left Utah on Sunday morning and arrive in Georgia three days later, face some obstacles of their own. During the trip, the group dealt with several flat tires and other maintenance issues, Hobley said.
“There‘s a lot of wear and tear to drive these big rigs 2,000 miles in three days.”
They plan to stay in Georgia — or wherever they’re needed — for 10 days before making the journey home.
Nurses from Utah also made their way east to help with an influx of patients at hospitals in northern and western Florida.
Ally Okazaki flew out before the storm, arriving Sept. 8. She has worked every night since, she said.
Okazaki said she’s helped mostly with patients who were displaced from hospitals in areas that received the brunt of the storm, where officials expected power outages and flooding.
“There‘s just a ton of patients there right now,” Okazaki said, adding that the role of out-of-state nurses was to ease the burden of local workers who also were juggling stress from property damage and flooding.
Other Utah nurses who have spent more time in the emergency room have told Okazaki that many new patients are dealing with infections from the water. The “swampy, dirty environment” and debris are complicating injuries that otherwise may not be a big deal, Okazaki said.
Okazaki works for Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Utah, which is part of the Hospital Corporation of America network. She was sent by the network to Osceola Regional Medical Center.
“It‘s been great. I’ve always wanted to do some kind of disaster relief,” she said. “People in Florida are super tough.”