LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – While most people are following a mandatory evacuation for Helene, linemen are heading into the storm.
More than 100,000 people have already lost power in Florida and Georgia. Crews from Arkansas arrived in both states on Wednesday. They fueled up and got the food they may need for days without a store open.
Arkansas linemen arrive in Florida and South Carolina to restore power after Debby
General Foreman Mike Matty has been doing so since 1997, going into the roughest conditions so people can see relief sooner, rather than later.
He and 53 other line workers with the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas traveled to Keystone, Florida, which Matty said would be just east of the storm’s eye around midnight.
“They’re calling it a beast. They’re saying maybe top 10 hurricanes for Florida,” Matty said. “You got to mentally prepare for it, and a lot of the guys are on the fifth floor of the motel here, and they’re like ‘I think I’m going to stay on the bottom floor for that.”