FRANKFORT, Ky. ( FOX 56 ) — Florida is still in the early stages of recovery after being hit by back-to-back hurricanes.
The death toll from Milton has reached at least 17 people and hundreds of thousands of people are still without power. FOX 56 spoke with one group from Kentucky that’s working in hard-hit areas to help ease the burden.
The Frankfort Plant Board is no stranger to responding to natural disasters.
“We’ve responded to the tornadoes we had three or four years ago during winter. We respond to other storms in other municipals in the state of Kentucky. We responded to the flood situations eastern Kentucky had,” said Scott Hudson, the electric superintendent with Frankfort Plant Board.
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Hudson said lineman work is a brother and when hard times call, he said they never hesitate to answer, even beyond state lines.
“Whether or not they’re local or away when stuff happens, you always want to go help another utility company,” Hudson said.
After Milton made landfall, some communities were demolished, with winds over 100 mph ripping the roots off homes and knocking down trees and power lines.
Less than 400,000 customers are still without power in Florida, a problem Frankfort Plant Board crews are working to help solve.
Read more of the latest Kentucky news “In situations like that, they may have house damage. They may have, you know, but when their lights come back on, it helps them kind of get a sense of normalcy again. And there’s not, you know, granted, they still got a lot more to go through, but that’s the first stage, I think, is being able to know that you have electric, and you feel a little bit better about that and you can worry about something else,” Hudson stated.
The group has been working in Mount Dora for the last few days and plans to help other Florida communities in need.
Hudson noted that, while the job may be difficult, it is incredibly rewarding.
“If you’re working in a neighborhood and then there’s, say, 100 houses and you get the 100 houses on, you’ll hear 50 or 60 people screaming in the middle of the night. And, you know, it’s just a that’s a real big, good feeling thing,” he claimed.
Read more of the latest Lexington & central Kentucky news According to Hudson, around 2,500 linemen from 22 states are working around the clock and their crews intend to stay until all power has been restored.
Matthew Duckworth contributed to this story.
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