Pictures courtesy of Snohomish PUD
Some local power crews are home after more than a month helping with Guam’s recovery from a powerful typhoon.
Typhoon Mawar left Guam 100% without power, forcing the Naval base, phone companies and anyone else with a generator to live off that limited power for 5 weeks.
Snohomish PUD was the only utility on the U.S. mainland to answer the call for mutual aid, sending 15 line workers, 2 mechanics and 3 trucks on a Ukrainian-built cargo jet made specifically to carry large equipment like the high line trucks the PUD sent to Guam. “They were there working 16 hours a day for 37 days,” says Snohomish PUD’s Kellie Stickney, “It’s a tremendous amount of work. I’m sure they were all exhausted when they got home and grateful to be back with their families and resting.”
Stickney tells Northwest Newsradio those crews had to work with hand tools until their own power tools and trucks arrived in damage they said was like nothing they’d ever seen before, with a complete loss of infrastructure. Stickney says, “Your cell phone communications, of course, Internet, air conditioning – it’s hot, it’s humid in Guam. Everything that you depend on power for would be out,” but Stickney says when their crews left, 98% of power had been restored on the island. She says they couldn’t even guess how much longer it would have taken without the PUD crews’ help.
Stickney says Snohomish PUD customers won’t be on the hook for the expense of the aid to Guam because FEMA will pay for the transportation, and it will reimburse the Guam Power Authority for what it will pay the PUD for the help.
