Posted on 11/03/2012 1:06:21 PM PDT by mdittmar
IBEW members from throughout the country are pitching in to restore power and fix damaged infrastructure.
“Devastating,” Wall, N.J., Local 1289 Business Manager Edward Stroup, III, says about Sandy.
Stroup represents workers at Jersey Central Power and Light – a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. – which provides power to more than 1 million central New Jersey residents. He says:
There are houses that have been totaled, houses that are almost beyond repair, massive infrastructure problems – it’s a huge mess.
His linemen are working around the clock to help get tens of thousands of customers’ power back on. The company says the priority is responding to hazardous situations and fixing major infrastructure damage, like substation and transmission facilities.
Says Stroup:
There are lines with multiple problems, which have to be fixed. It seems like there are trees down on every block and if it didn’t hit a house, it took out a power line.
Safety is both the IBEW’s and company’s top goal, he says, reporting no injuries despite the dangerous nature of the work.
Hardest hit has been the Jersey Shore, with the oceanfront communities of Atlantic City and Asbury Park overrun by flooding that tore up boardwalks and homes.
Says Atlantic City Local 210 Business Manager Charles Hill:
Massive tidal surges covered the roads in over three feet of sand. They’ve got snow plows working to clear the roads.
Hill says they’ve got everyone working to clean-up the damage, with help from IBEW linemen from across the country and inside wiremen from Folsom Local 351.
The Washington, D.C. metro-area, hit bad by last summer’s derecho storms, was largely spared the widespread damage seen in the Northeast, says Washington, D.C. Local 1900 Business Manager Jim Griffin, who represents workers at Pepco.
In fact, the local is sending a team of more than 20 workers, who specialize in underground line work, to New York City, which was hit by floods and blackouts that shut down the subway system and darkened lower Manhattan.
Says Griffin:
Much of ConEd’s system is underground, so they need all the help they can get. It will be a long process just to pump all the water out.
IBEW linemen from areas outside the storm region are also working to clean up the damage.
Paducah, Ky., Local 816 member Dustin Croley is in Massachusetts to help restore power.
Waiting out the worst of the storm on Cape Cod, he told hometown WPSD-TV:
It didn’t rain a lot but the wind got really bad, broke a lot of trees, and the power went out several times.
fu ibew
Concerned that they get the credit (and overtime) and that non union dues paying workers don’t mess with their turf.
Good news I guess. It’s just too bad that it is going to take longer and cost more to get the job done with union help doing it.
Dang right, they want that double time and triple time, ALL of it.
We’re known for our hospitality and love of country in the South. We also have long memories. I don’t think our boys will be so quick to help next time.
Shove it up your collective and very smelly Obamas, IBEW.
This was NOT the people of New Jersey, at least not the part I’m from (rural/suburban, not the big cities). These were thugs who represent no one, not even many of their union members.
The longer they take, the more they make.
Amen! Our linemen are some of the best due to a lot of practice fixing power after tornadoes. Like I said before, New York and New Jersey are on their own. It’s a long drive from GA, Alabama and other Southern cities to be turned away.
They want to maximize their earnings with as much overtime as possible. The people who suffer will be the ones who are going to spend far too long without power, because these greedy, selfish goons rejected the non-union workers from out of state.
Your democrat leadership in action.
I'd like him to explain this email a colleague of mine received about 48 hours ago.
ROBBINSVILLE, NJ - The Township of Robbinsville is both embarrassed and frustrated by the lack of restoration response from Jersey Central Power & Light, a FirstEnergy company. This is the second time in 14 months that PSE&G has outperformed the JCP&L utility following a major natural weather event, each of which was predicted several days in advance. At this time we estimate 90 percent of PSE&G customers have been restored in Robbinsville, while 100 percent of affected JCP&L customers still had no power as of noon Thursday. We have been petitioning New Jersey Legislators to allow towns such as ours to opt-out of service areas where providers such as JCP&L have been unresponsive to customers.
As a member of the IBEW when I was younger, I can confirm that the leadership are indeed thugs and thieves.
Poetic justice, no? Parasites depending on other parasites to get their section of the host alive and healthy again?
Yes, yes, yes. We hear the same rhetoric from CAIR after every "man caused disaster".
Strangely, we never hear condemnation of the terrorists or the Thugs from other members of their cult or union.
There was another thread regarding the IBEW and out of state
My dad was a 40 year employee at JCP&l. He was a lineman and he did suplenent our lives by working in every climate you can imagine; heat waves, blizzard’s, nor easterners. He would go to work in the middle of the evening after a days regular scheduled work, because the phone rang. If he left that evening, he usually didn’t come home until the end of the next day. He lived for overtime. Because of his hard work and always taking that call to go in when climate is worst, he was compensated double time & yes sometimes tripple time. My dad also left for weeks on time to aid in crisis of other states needing lineman work sent by JCP&L.
The ibew of JCPL is not a ibew that, per se, does construction. It a “shop union “.
The last strike by JCP&l in 2004 or was ineffective by labor.
Jcpl is not the sort of union as strong as ibew 3 or ibew itself.
They should accept all help, I grew up in the Bayshore area and the pictures my ma is showing of the neigberhood is breathtakingly amazingly & sadining all at once.
My dad retired a couple years ago as a company Guy, he had the right idea to by a gigantic generator for the house to power the necessities for 96 hours. They have no power and they are on there way here to GA to get be comfortable. No damage to their home, but the place unopperable.
Pardon the grammar, mis-spelling and fractured verbiage, wrote this on my phone.
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