OUC utility vehicles leave the Pershing Operations Center bound for Tallahassee on Wednesday.
As the last vestiges of Hurricane Idalia passed over Orlando on Wednesday, OUC–The Reliable One deployed three line crews in response to the City of Tallahassee Utilities’ (CTU) request for help with power restoration. Nearly 40,000 CTU customers were left without electricity in the wake of Idalia, a Category 3 storm that earlier in the day had made landfall about 80 miles southeast of the state capital.
Public power utilities like OUC and CTU can call on each other for workers and supplies through mutual aid agreements coordinated through the Florida Municipal Electric Association. Two other Central Florida municipal utilities, Kissimmee Utility Authority and Lakeland Electric, also dispatched crews to Tallahassee.
OUC sent 19 employees – 18 line technicians and a fleet mechanic – to help the City of Tallahassee Utilities restore power to customers.
Leaving in an assortment of 15 utility trucks, the convoy of linemen and a fleet mechanic, totaling 19 in all, departed OUC’s Pershing Operations Center for Tallahassee at 1:30 p.m. Led by Jeff Cockcroft, Line Supervisor, the team was expected to begin power restoration work first thing Thursday and remain on site to help CTU for as long as needed.
Cockcroft said he’s been on seven mutual aid deployments during his long OUC career, three of them to Tallahassee.
“My first priority is getting everyone there and back safely,” he said. “Once we’re on the ground in Tallahassee we’ll probably work on repairing lateral powerlines so we can get their customers’ power back on as quickly as possible. We’ll work 16-hour days until the work is done.”
For Darius Irvin, Line Technician III, who joined OUC in 2021, the trip to Tallahassee represents his first deployment.
“I think it’s going to be exciting to go up there and get people back in power. This is why I became a lineman,” he said.
Here is the makeup of the crews deployed to Tallahassee:
- Jeff Cockcroft, Line Supervisor
- Ferdinand Garcia, Fleet Technician
Crew 1:
- Brian Barnett, Lead Line Tech
- Austin Nettles, Line Tech I
- Joseph Schulte, Line Tech II
- Evan Englert, Line Tech II
- Cameron Parson, Line Tech III
- Salvador Magana, Line Tech III
Crew 2:
- Damon Adkinson, Lead Line Tech
- Lawrence Strauss, Line Tech I
- Charles Wincy, Line Tech II
- Chase Crawford, Line Tech II
- Darius Irvin, Line Tech III
Crew 3:
- Donny Hurley, Lead Line Tech
- Richard Boley, Lead Line Tech
- Elijah Venn, Line Tech II
- William Englert, Line Tech II
- Bryce Mahler, Line Tech III
- Mason Wood, Apprentice Line Tech