NORTHERN KENTUCKY — Recovery efforts continue in Florida as thousands of people have been affected by Hurricane Idalia. That includes workers from Kentucky who’ve been mobilized to help.
Duke Energy mobilized about 4,500 power line technicians, vegetation workers, damage assessors and support personnel to respond to power outages resulting from the hurricane. Over 180,000 of the utility’s customers were affected.
Clint Carnahan is the director for operations for the company’s Erlanger operations center. This is one of the many times in his career he’s volunteered to mobilize.
“The damage that we’ve seen has been progressively worse. We started over in the villages in Florida, and have moved westward. Stopping at multiple different op centers. Currently, we’re in Madison. It is very close to where the eye came through. So a lot more damage. We’re seeing a lot of poles broken. Multiple spans, miles, or wire down. A lot of homes torn up. A lot of people without electric,” Carnahan said. “Anytime there’s a natural disaster, you see folks that are asking for maybe monetary donations, or time, or coming down and just helping out with providing meals and stuff like that. So it’s vitally important to help.”
The damage they’re seeing sometimes is like what they see in Kentucky. However, there are some key differences.
“With hurricanes, it’s a lot more damage, and the outages are a lot longer. So when we can come down and bring resources to shorten that duration for people they’re very pleased for us to be down here, leaving our homes to help them out in a time of need,” Carnahan said. “It’s kind of unimaginable where people have lost their whole homes. Extensive tree work that pretty much takes somebody’s whole property out. 20, 30, 40 trees in one person’s yard that are broken off 10, 15 feet high. So, very rewarding to come down and help them out.”
Right now, the goal is to have full restoration at his current substation some time between Saturday and Sunday. It’s a relief to those customers, given others are looking at timelines closer to two to three weeks.
Once the power’s back on, Carnahan and his crew will move on to the next substation. The focus remains on helping others, and not when they’ll be back home in Kentucky.
The Duke Energy Foundation is also committing $100,000 in grants to support local recovery and disaster relief efforts in Florida.
