Update on Jimmy

This is an email from Jimmy, thought everyone would be interested.

I guess this would be like a blog, I have not a clue.I hope this would be interesting, but I am sure that it will probably get old for everyone, including me, by the time I leave.

We headed out for Galveston this morning, just the GF’s an Foreman, to look at a line that was down. I did not realize this, but the dog track we are mustering at is only about 15 miles from Galveston. Anyways, we headed south on the interstate and within 2 miles hit a roadblock. Once through, the scene very rapidly changed and it looked like a bomb had gone off. There way debris on both sides of the freeway, at places up to 5’-6’ high. Boats also were on the side and median of the freeway. The boats were just a few, but they were probably ¼ mile from the water. As we got further south, things got progressively worse. It is just amazing the force of the hurricane. By the time we got to Galveston and across the causeway, there were 50’ deep sea fishing boats on the side of the road. We think we were the first crews on the island. The water had to be at least 5’-6’ deep at the peak where we were. Along the freeway when we were coming in, there was debris at the phone level on the poles.

We drove to where the line started to begin to drive the line. It is supposed to be 23 miles long heading west towards Stewart? Unfortunately, we spent the majority of the day there (you may have seen the pic with all the trucks lined up next to the line that was broken). We finally drove to a few substations to look at clearance points and one other section that was down. This didn’t happed until close to 4pm. We just ended up getting the crews back to the race track and moved to another yard @ 3 miles away. It was a very frustrating day for all the guys, just seeing what we needed to rebuild and not being able to do anything because the utility is just to overwhelmed with the damage and amount of men to put to work. There was no material ready and we could not even get a clearance to start cleaning up. After being on the road for almost 3 days, @ 1500 miles, the guys are ready to do some rebuilding.

We have been told that there is much more on Galveston. More crews arrived today. Our yard that has the transmission crews only has as much equipment in it as the dog track last night. When we left the dog track, where we still eat, it was 8 pm, trucks were still rolling in, and it was just as full as it was last night. It was quite a site to see a line of @ 30 tree trimming trucks lined up on the freeway to get into Galveston.

I feel sympathy for the people who have been affected. There were several people we met that rode it out. It had to be a near death experience.

I will get pictures out as I can, since I can only do it with my “air card.”

Jimmy