Contact: NOVEC Communications, 1-703-335-0500, communications@novec.com
NOVEC’s Jake Till, Caleb Barton, Ben Williams, Hunter Partlowe, Connor Jost, and Jeremy Jenkins helped lineworkers at Southside Electric Cooperative restore electricity for residents.
MANASSAS, Va. – In the spirit of the sixth Cooperative Principle, Northern Virginia Electric Cooperative (NOVEC) sent six lineworkers to assist Southside Electric Cooperative, headquartered in Crewe, Virginia as Winter Storm Blair left nearly 28,000 homes and businesses in the dark. (Southside serves about 59,200 members.) Jake Till, Caleb Barton, Ben Williams, Hunter Partlowe, Connor Jost, and Jeremy Jenkins left their homes and families Jan. 7 and worked for three days alongside their peers at Southside Electric.
The sixth Cooperative Principle is “Cooperation Among Cooperatives,” but the NOVEC lineworkers also boosted the seventh Cooperative Principle, “Concern for Community.” Till, who participated in his first mutual aid operation, said the experience was gratifying. “It was good to know we were helping people,” he said. “It’s a small, close-knit community. The lineworkers at Southside appreciated our support.”
Mark DeChristopher, NOVEC’s manager of system construction, said that during storm preparation, “Electric coops from VMDAEC (Virginia, Maryland & Delaware Association of Electric Cooperatives) remain in constant contact and discuss the potential need for mutual aid to assist in restoration efforts.” When the call from a neighboring cooperative comes, volunteers are recruited, trucks and bags are packed and NOVEC crews hit the road to lend support in any way they can.
Along with mutual aid crews from several other cooperatives, three two-man NOVEC teams worked with Southside employees mainly in the rural towns of Altavista and Bedford, where pine trees dot the rolling hills. The lineworkers put up multiple spans of overhead conductor and replaced several transformers that had been damaged by fallen trees.
The men worked nearly 16-hour days in freezing temperatures as they navigated ice-laden trees and poor road conditions. “It felt colder that last day when we were working off Smith Mountain Lake,” said Jost.
Despite the hardships, when asked if they would participate in another mutual aid operation, without hesitation the entire crew said, “absolutely!”
