Two linemen with Manitowoc Public Utilities are back home after traveling to Florida to aid in Hurricane Ian relief efforts.
Kyle Oudenhoven and Jake Zipperer were among 33 Wisconsin utility workers to make the trip along with fellow MPU employee, Ben Davidson.
Oudenhoven told Seehafer News that after a day and a half of driving, the duo was staged at New Smyrna Beach where they experienced a lot of flooding issues.
“A lot of water, a lot of downed lines, a lot of tree trimming we had to do. Conditions were very rough,” he explained. ”There was a lot of backed-up sewage and water drains, and fuel was pretty limited down there so we had to pick and choose where we had to fuel up our trucks.”
Kyle said when the power came back on, the residents were extremely grateful.
“Most of those people [had] been out of power for two, three, four days, maybe even longer,” he said. “It was a really good feeling to go down there and help out.”
Zipperer told us the work was essentially the same, just with the added challenge of dealing with flood waters.
“Everybody here likes being a lineman,” he said. “The best thing to do is to go down and help people out no matter if it’s here in Manitowoc or out of state…getting everybody’s lights back on is the whole reason you wanted to be a lineman in the first place.”
Jake also explained that while Davidson traveled with them, Ben did not work directly with himself and Kyle.
“We didn’t actually work with us as much as me and him worked together,” he revealed. “He was on a crew that was planting new poles, and we were actually more of ta service restoration, actually putting lines back up in the air.”
Both linemen were very humbled by the experience and were more than happy to help those who were in desperate need following the devastation of Hurricane Ian.
