By Bethaney Phillips

On Oct. 3rd employees from Bluestem Electric’s Clay Center and Wamego locations traveled to Aiken, South Carolina to work on electric repairs. six linemen traveled and will work for a week to restore power. Hurricane Helene made landfall on Sept. 26th, causing widespread damages and power outages across the southeast. Most affected areas include the Carolinas, Florida, and Georgia.

Helene was rated a category four hurricane with sustained winds of 140 mph and heavy rains that took out key infrastructure, including power lines, poles, and grid components.

“The damage is so severe instead of just repairing they’re having to go in and rebuild,” said Bluestem GM, Mike Morton, when discussing the Aiken area. “This is going to be a mean one for them.”

He said at the height of the storm estimations put 92% of area customers without power, and as of Oct. 2nd, that number was 50% of customers with power.

“Our guys are always willing to go when we call upon them,” he said. “They’re really good about going out and trying to help other people, especially in this situation to try and go out and at least get the lights back on.”

Morton said Bluestem is part of a coop with other Kansas electric companies. In total, he said about 80 linemen from the coop will make the trip, taking 40 trucks to handle the work.

“It’s basically a big convoy headed that way,” he said. “After the first wave of workers we’ll do more checking and assess the situation and we may send down a second wave of linemen to do more work later on.”

He said this is one of the ways that eclectic coops work together and that Bluestem employees have traveled in the past to help with hurricane and ice storm damage alike.

Morton asked for the public to keep their thoughts and prayers of Bluestem workers and other linemen.

“This is dangerous work and I do ask that you keep them in your thoughts.”