Co-op linemen honored at State of the State

 

 

Gov. Hen­ry McMas­ter used his annu­al State of the State address to rec­og­nize the elec­tric coop­er­a­tive line­men who worked long hours to restore pow­er to South Car­oli­na after Hur­ri­cane Helene.

Mid­way through his hour-long speech, the Colum­bia Repub­li­can recount­ed the dev­as­ta­tion South Car­oli­na suf­fered from one of the dead­liest and most destruc­tive storms in state his­to­ry.

On the coop­er­a­tive sys­tem alone, Helene snapped more than 5,500 co-op poles and knocked out the lights for 425,000 meters — almost half of South Carolina’s co-op mem­bers.

“But our team respond­ed mag­nif­i­cent­ly,” McMas­ter said. “And join­ing us here tonight are a few of the men and women who worked then day and night, some for weeks at a time, at dan­ger­ous heights, under dan­ger­ous con­di­tions and around dead­ly high volt­age elec­tric­i­ty to get the pow­er on.

“Line­men from Duke Ener­gy, Domin­ion Ener­gy, San­tee Coop­er. And from the local elec­tric coop­er­a­tives, Aiken, Broad Riv­er, Blue Ridge, Coastal, Fair­field, Lau­rens, Lit­tle Riv­er, Mid Car­oli­na, New­ber­ry and York. I ask that you please stand and be rec­og­nized.”

Lat­er that evening, the line work­ers joined McMas­ter for a group pho­to in his office and then attend­ed a recep­tion at the Governor’s Man­sion.

“I appre­ci­ate it a lot. It’s def­i­nite­ly an hon­or to have your hard work rec­og­nized,” said Lit­tle Riv­er Elec­tric appren­tice line­man Noah Edmonds. “Being a co-op line­man, I know a lot of the peo­ple that are in my com­mu­ni­ty, and I can see the work that we’ve done and how it helps peo­ple, and I appre­ci­ate that. I appre­ci­ate the gov­er­nor for rec­og­niz­ing us for that.”

You can watch the governor’s remarks here.

Source South Car­oli­na Liv­ing mag­a­zine