In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall in Florida on Thursday, Sept. 26, 104 skilled lineworkers from 21 electric cooperatives across Illinois traveled to the affected areas to assist with recovery efforts.
Helene knocked out electric service to an estimated 1.25 million co-op members as it passed from the Florida coast to southwest Virginia late Thursday and into Friday. The Category 4 hurricane destroyed high-voltage transmission structures and turned highways into impassable mounds of uprooted trees and tangled messes of downed wires and power poles.
On Friday, co-ops in Florida were dealing with more than 200,000 outages. Georgia co-ops totaled over 404,000 outages, with more than 316,000 in South Carolina and 230,000 in North Carolina. As the storm passed northwest, more than 100,000 co-op members in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia also were without power.
In addition to Illinois, lineworkers from more than a dozen other states deployed mutual aid crews to help with power restoration. Illinois crews assisted electric cooperatives in Georgia, Kentucky and North Carolina.
Electric co-ops operate according to seven principles, and principles six and seven, “cooperation among cooperatives” and “concern for community,” are directly connected to mutual aid — utilized during times of major outages and disasters. Mutual aid allows electric co-ops to help each other during times of need.
It’s essentially about neighbors helping neighbors, even when those neighbors are fellow co-ops located hundreds of miles away. The concept of mutual aid originated with rural electrification efforts in the 1930s. From the beginning, electric co-ops relied on each other to assist in times of need, and mutual aid provides an essential safety net in times of crisis.
Overall, more than 6,400 personnel — including lineworkers, support staff, right-of-way contractors, warehouse staff, safety employees and command center staff — were part of the mutual aid effort. Throughout recovery, Illinois co-ops deployed a total of 178 lineworkers.
As of the publication date of this magazine three weeks after Hurricane Helene, line crews were still helping with storm recovery — with crews rotating in and out during that time. We are proud of our dedicated lineworkers, who represent the power of cooperation and community. Together, we are co-op strong.
