There is something about disasters that brings out the best in linemen, unless they get cut out of the action. Then they get a little out of sorts. Putting a lineman on routine duty when there are storms to fight is about the lowest thing you could do to a lineman.

I was down in Florida a week after the fourth hurricane of the season, Hurricane Jeanne, had left the premises for points north. Jeanne and her brothers and sister managed to deliver one of the biggest natural disasters ever to hit Florida. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne rolled into Florida one after the other, leaving the state in shambles.

Renting a car in Orlando, I headed toward the Atlantic Coast on the Bee Line Expressway, then traveled south on I-95 to the Melbourne area. I entered the outer environs of the region where Jeanne had done her destructive work. By the time I arrived, the majority of the storm restoration work on feeders had been handled and the crews were out in the residential neighborhoods. I stopped to get gas and spotted several line-contracting crews on the move. I fell in behind them, hoping they were headed to a job site.

After trailing them for three or four miles, the vehicles pulled into Florida Power & Light's (FPL) Ellis Road staging area. The guard directed me to the service center offices where I met up with Chuck Cain, the area operations manager. Cain didn't seem one bit exhausted. He didn't even seem stressed. Maybe he was hiding it well. But Cain did have this fire in his eyes. You could tell he and the operations team were on a mission to keep every storm crew fed and every truck equipped. I was surprised to learn this utility still had all the necessary materials on hand to keep the crews working, even after three hurricanes invaded their service territory.

I talked with Don Collins, a retired FPL lineman, who was called in to bird-dog contract crews and make sure they had everything they needed. Collins introduced me to Ron Feltenberger and Mark Belanger. These linemen had been with another contractor working out of Local 42 in Manchester, Connecticut, when the storms hit. These guys got itchy for action and threw in with THIRO crews heading south. Feltenberger found Florida residents to be much more appreciative than the cantankerous sort he left in New England. But he did miss the cooler weather, finding the humidity hard to take.

Feltenberger's take on the storm: “I've worked some major ice storms, but I've never seem destruction like this, with houses thrown two miles away.” Feltenberger had been “giving it hell” for two weeks before I met him. He was “hitting it” the old-fashioned way with his hooks, stating, “I've yet to see the inside of a bucket, but that's okay with me.”

Belanger, his gray-bearded sidekick, accepted the long hours, while looking forward to an oversized paycheck that comes with 20-hour days. Asked how long he would be in Florida, Belanger said, “We are hanging in here, taking it one day at a time.” After the hurricane work comes to an end, these linemen are considering taking a couple of weeks off before connecting up with the next contractor. They'll be able to afford it.

I traveled on over to the coast and located a Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) crew changing out a pole in a subdivision just west of the coastal highway in Malabar. I watched Robert “Little Stick” Branchal and Rodney “Coach” Garcia installing impact connectors. Around noon, with the work completed, I volunteered to buy the guys a steak if they would fill me in on their there doing storm duty.

Branchal told me their first assignment was in Birmingham, Alabama, where the PNM crews were stationed in huge tents. “At first we thought the tents would be too hot, but they had these great big pipes bringing in cold air and we darn near froze,” Branchal said. “The next night we got sleeping bags and actually got some sleep. Actually, we've been treated really well.”

“Of course the real test of a storm-fighting line team is the quality of the work. These men have done an outstanding job,” said Mark Martinez, their supervisor. “We were the first crews called in and we will be the last ones to leave. In Birmingham, they recommended us to Florida. We were already headed home, but they knew we knew our craft well and that we would deliver.”

Branchal took it upon himself to introduce me around. The first person I met was Thomas “Sarge” Sargent, who filled me in on their assignments. “We've been going on three weeks, first Birmingham, then Pensacola and now, whatever this place is. We don't know where we've working today, and we don't know where we will be working tomorrow,” said Sargent.

I think Branchal had it in for me when he dragged me over to meet “Big Daddy” Ortiz. Ortiz has been 29 years in the business and is still going strong. His first comment focused on safety: “We're glad everyone from PNM will be going back with what they came with.” But Ortiz also has his prickly side. I figured out that Ortiz is the alpha male of this group. He was up for verbal jousting, even wading into politics. Messing with “Big Daddy” was exhausting but fun.

Here is a warning for those of you who work with linemen: Never ask a lineman what he thinks, unless you can handle the answer. With a lineman, what they are is what you get.

The last conversation I had was bittersweet. Lineman Ron Barela told me: “In our division in Santa Fe, there are just a few of us with less than 20 years in. None of us would trade our careers for an indoor job and we don't mind the hard work, but we want to be appreciated for what we do. One lady down here had been out of power for eight days when we showed up. When we got her power back on, she came out crying great big tears, and she hugged every one of us. And we weren't in what you'd call the most sweet-smelling condition.”

Whenever I spend time in the field, I get this renewed sense that the heart and soul of a utility is in line work. I tip my hat to all the linemen who worked the Florida hurricanes and to the support staff who worked tirelessly so the linemen could do what they do best.

Editor's Note: T&D World would like to do a pictorial on linemen working the 2004 hurricanes. If you would like to participate, send photos with captions and a brief description (include circumstances, locations, dates, crew members and customer responses) on a CD ROM to Emily Saarela, Managing Editor, T&D World, 9800 Metcalf Ave., Overland Park, Kansas 66212.