Pa. crews head to Florida to help those affected by Helene

BERWYN, Pa. (CBS) — As Hurricane Helene races toward Florida , utility crews from the Delaware Valley are on their way to help restore power to affected areas.

Brendan Woods did one last check to make sure his truck was loaded with everything he needs to help get the lights back on before heading toward the path of the powerful and monstrous Hurricane Helene.

"This is like my 18th time going off system, so I've been through this quite a few times, but you never know what you're getting into," Woods said.

Woods was one of the nearly 40 PECO employees who hit the road Thursday afternoon. Line workers, fleet specialists and safety workers answered the call to help potentially tens of thousands of people who are expected to lose power.

"What they're calling for I think, it's going to be pretty major," Woods said.

"Sometimes we're in tents, sometimes we are in trailers, sometimes we're in hotels, it just depends on the devastation — where there's power, where there's not, where it's flooded," said Jennifer Hanna, the vice president of electric operations.

Hanna said the workers anticipate they will be on the road for at least two weeks.

A 20-truck caravan pulled out of PECO's Berwyn campus around 3 p.m. Thursday. The workers will stop in Virginia as Helene is expected to rip through Florida's panhandle. Then, they will drive to Georgia to pick up additional equipment and supplies and head to wherever they are needed to support other power companies.

"It's a lot of drive time, a lot of windshield time, and when you stop, it's like, whew," Woods said.

"You feel that gratification when you see people who are gracious for the time and the men and women that are down there and turning the lights back on, which is part of it," Hanna said.

The crews will work 16 hours on and eight hours off until the job is done. If they're there longer than two weeks, PECO says it will reevaluate to determine if the crews need to be swapped out with a fresh wave of workers.