MIAMI – When you quit one job for another in the linemen industry, they call it "dragging."
"Sometimes it feels great," Will Shiflett, of Inchelium, says. "Other times you feel like you let people down."
Shiflett — who left a job in Montana to go assist millions of powerless residents in Florida after Hurricane Irma — is content he made the right decision this time. He received numerous “thank yous” from families affected by the historic storm. Some went up to 12 days without power.
“It was exciting and rewarding,” Shiflett, the son tribal member Viola (Mason) and Lucky Shiflett, said from Miami, Friday. “The storm’s winding down.”
The journeyman lineman worked 15- to 20-hour days for more than two weeks before returning home Sunday. He brought three men he trusted — Scott Hildebrand of Spokane, Tyler Wilson of Montana and Brandon Katzer of Colville — to ensure his safety on the dangerous task of fixing power lines and putting up new poles for residents.
“You want to take a crew that you know,” he said. “You want to be able to trust them. It’s dangerous enough but you don’t want someone else to kill you.”
When his team arrived on Sept. 10, Shiflett was told 4 million of the 6.5 million (two-thirds of the state) were still without power. About 20,000 lineman were called to respond.
“It was pretty chaotic,” he says. “They shut the whole (Zoo Miami) down and fairgrounds just so they could park all our trucks.”
Shiflett says he pictured more devastation than what he has witnessed.
“I was amazed that the areas we went to were in such good shape that they were,” he said. “Some of the other areas got hit and the houses were gone and destroyed. The (Florida) keys, one out of four houses got destroyed, and the surge water destroyed the other third of them.”
While there wasn’t quite as many homes destroyed and overturned cars as he expected, the president of Florida Power & Light told the Washington Post the storm “has probably produced more debris than we’ve ever seen in the history of storms. We’ve had 10 years of growth that got pruned from Hurricane Irma, and unfortunately a lot of that ended up on our power lines.” Total damage from wind, rain and flooding was estimated at $50 billion.
While Shiflett was in Florida, a handful of linemen were killed, he said. One fell from the fifth floor of a parking garage. Others collapsed from heat exhaustion, Shiflett said. None of it deters him from changing careers, though.
“I love it,” he said of working as a lineman. “It’s a good job. It’s a good career. I get to go anywhere in the country and work. I call Inchelium home, I’m just never there.”
With Puerto Rico taking a major hit, he may end up there to continue working. There is widespread devastation unlike any Shiflett has seen, as Hurricane Maria was even more deadly and left the entire island in the dark.
“We’re going to see if they need a few more of us or not,” he said. “They’re all out of power.”
No comments:
Post a Comment