Arizona Republic | azcentral.com
Sun Nov 4, 2012 10:23 AM
About 30 Arizona Public Service utility employees are in Long Island, N.Y. working to restore power to the millions of people affected by Superstorm Sandy.
The 33 APS workers arrived in Long Island Friday and, after a day of logistics, have gathered supplies from a makeshift supply depot located near a small airport in Suffolk County and now are working to repair lines that provide power to homes and businesses, spokesman Steven Gotfried said.
These guys are ready to get to work, he said. Weve spent a lot of time getting ready and wanting to help get the power restored.
Sandy knocked out power to more than 8.5 million people in 21 states, including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, when it hit the eastern seaboard about 8 p.m. Monday, devastating homes and buildings, and flooding entire neighborhoods and city blocks, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Sandy knocked out power to more people than any storm in history, and the federal government has formed a special task force out of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help restore power quickly, according to the Energy Department.
About 58,000 utility crews from around the country, as well as from Canada and Mexico, have responded to help restore power. As of 2 p.m. Saturday, 2,497, 421 people were without power in the affected states.
The APS crew will work at a utility substation about 45 minutes from the airport repairing power poles and replacing wires and downed transformers, Gotfried said.
The employees are from across the state, including Yuma, the metro-Phoenix area, Payson, Joseph City and Winslow, he said.
Thank you all from out of state who are coming to help us. Hurricane Irene was nothing for us, so we expected the same.
all of us were out walking the neighborhood surveying the damage and it actually looks like a tornado funnel came through....it looked like a direct line that took down all the trees and wires.