OUC – The Reliable One on Wednesday (Sept. 16) answered another call for help by a municipal utility impacted by a hurricane, sending a power restoration team to Fairhope, AL. This marks our second mutual aid deployment in less than a month.
Fairhope, pop. 22,000, lost all power when Hurricane Sally, a Category 2 storm,
OUC Line Tech II Zachery Brown prepares to leave for Fairhope, AL.
came ashore along Alabama’s Gulf Coastline in the early morning. Fairhope is located on the mouth of Mobile Bay and sustained major wind and flood damage.
OUC’s 12-member crew is expected to arrive Thursday and immediately begin work. The team will remain in Fairhope until it’s no longer needed. In 2017, City of Fairhope Public Utilities sent a mutual aid team to assist OUC with power restoration after Hurricane Irma struck Central Florida.
The latest mutual aid deployment comes only three weeks after OUC sent another 12-member crew to Louisiana in the wake of Hurricane Laura, the Category 3 storm that struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 27. That crew spent 10 days helping municipal utilities restore power to the residents of Alexandria and Winnfield.
In keeping with OUC’s COVID-19 precautions, power restoration crews observe social distancing and practice enhanced safety and sanitization protocols.
The current power mutual aid team includes line technicians Jody Rodgers (Line Supervisor), Brian Barnett, Justin Restituyo, Andrew Phillips, Justin Stanley, Trever Taylor, Mike Powell, Steve Carver, Zachery Brown, Joseph Schulte, and Ernest Porter, and fleet mechanic Dave Swain, Sr.
