Philadelphia-area utility crews head to Florida to help with Hurricane Helene
BERWYN, Pa. (CBS) — As Hurricane Helene races toward Florida, utility crews from the Delaware Valley are on their way to help restore power to affected areas.
Brendan Woods did one last check to make sure his truck was loaded with everything he needs to help get the lights back on before heading toward the path of the powerful and monstrous Hurricane Helene.
"This is like my 18th time going off system, so I've been through this quite a few times, but you never know what you're getting into," Woods said.
Woods was one of the nearly 40 PECO employees who hit the road Thursday afternoon. Line workers, fleet specialists and safety workers answered the call to help potentially tens of thousands of people who are expected to lose power.
"What they're calling for I think, it's going to be pretty major," Woods said.
"Sometimes we're in tents, sometimes we are in trailers, sometimes we're in hotels, it just depends on the devastation — where there's power, where there's not, where it's flooded," said Jennifer Hanna, the vice president of electric operations.
Hanna said the workers anticipate they will be on the road for at least two weeks.
A 20-truck caravan pulled out of PECO's Berwyn campus around 3 p.m. Thursday. The workers will stop in Virginia as Helene is expected to rip through Florida's panhandle. Then, they will drive to Georgia to pick up additional equipment and supplies and head to wherever they are needed to support other power companies.
"It's a lot of drive time, a lot of windshield time, and when you stop, it's like, whew," Woods said.
"You feel that gratification when you see people who are gracious for the time and the men and women that are down there and turning the lights back on, which is part of it," Hanna said.
The crews will work 16 hours on and eight hours off until the job is done. If they're there longer than two weeks, PECO says it will reevaluate to determine if the crews need to be swapped out with a fresh wave of workers.
Hurricane Helene strengthens
Meanwhile, many in the path of the storm are already seeing the effects of Hurricane Helene.
CBS News Philadelphia Meteorologist Tammie Souza has family in the Tampa Bay area. By 7 p.m., water had overflowed the docks and seawall and started to flood homes.
"This is going to be the highest surge in the Tampa-St. Pete area in decades, in possibly 40 and even 50 years," Souza said.
Like many, her family spent the past few days getting prepared, but Souza knows the worst may be yet to come.
"I think everybody underestimated it and it that it is going to be a very long night of people staying awake and watching," Souza said. "And I think there is going to be a lot of heartbreak when people see that water come in where it's not come in in decades."