News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville Electric Department has sent two teams of volunteers to Bowling Green, Kentucky to help power restoration efforts.
Director Carl Haney said that it’s part of a years-long mutual aid system with other electric departments in the area.
“Bowling Green had several transmission poles, that’s the high voltage electric lines, they had several of those that were destroyed,” Haney said. “So your first efforts have to be to try to get your substations and those circuits back on, so right now our crews are working on getting those lines, getting the lines rebuilt and the poles back up.”
Haney said that the volunteers left on Sunday morning. He said that as of now, they don’t know how long the volunteers will be needed.
Haney said that the good news is they have more volunteers than they’re able to send, so they can serve in rotations for as long the help is necessary.
“Your first thought is the tornadoes of March 2020, but we’ve had different events happen,” Haney said. “Last year we had the ice storm that came through that people did the same thing. They stepped up and they volunteered to come help Cookeville. So we’ve crews from different areas before, as well as we’ve went to different areas to help them. So it’s a great program put together to help everybody else.”
