Connecticut

Groton Utilities Crew Heads to St. Thomas for Hurricane Relief Efforts

Groton Utility crews are off to St. Thomas to help put up new power poles. Much of the island remains without power weeks after it was hit by Hurricane Maria.

The first crew headed out Sunday. They took trucks to Fort Lauderdale and placed them on barges to the island. The crew will then travel to Miami and then fly out to St. Thomas.

“They are down there all broken,” Jeff Lyon said.

For Groton Utilities lineman Jeff Lyon, returning to the U.S. Virgin Islands to repair downed power poles is more than just a job but a civic duty.

“I can remember all of the corrugated metal from the roofs of the houses twisted right around the poles,” Lyon said.

Lyon was last in the Virgin Islands more than two decades ago and recalls the devastation a hurricane can have on an island and the challenges of working on different terrain.

“The roads are small, we’ve got big equipment here and sometimes we're going to have to break down our trucks to let the traffic through so that's a problem down there,” Lyon said.

“We figure we’ll put up one pole an hour so it's 14 poles a day that's what we're going to target at,” Brian Roche said.

Brian Roche, Manager of Engineering and Lyon are part of a 40 plus member crew including Norwich Public Utilities, heading to St. Thomas. They’ll be working double time seven days a week, to bring the island back to light.

“It will be a great feeling when that happens,” Roche said.

“They're taking the small community of about 13,000 customers that we have here in Connecticut and they're going bring it down there to two or three million right down in the Virgin Islands,” said Manager of Operations Randall Surprenant.

For this hardworking crew, the hours are backed by heart and the desire to give power back to the people in St. Thomas.

“I love throwing the cut out at the end of the day and watch the neighborhoods come back up with lights and people coming out running to the side of the street and wave to you it's crazy it's great,” Lyon said.

The first crew will be working for about three weeks on the island then, Groton Utilities will start to rotate other crews for the next several months.

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