News
Lending a helping hand
Tyler Ohmann
11/27/2012
This Thanksgiving holiday one can be certain that millions of people on the east coast who went through Hurricane Sandy were giving thanks to a local lineman from Bottineau who volunteered his time on Long Island to restore power to victims of Hurricane Sandy.
John Derr, a lineman for Bottineau’s Otter Tail Power Company, spent six days on Long Island after Hurricane Sandy brought devastation and power loss to the people of the state of New York, leaving them in darkness, the cold and destruction all around them.
Derr stated that after reading an e-mail from Otter Tail’s headquarters in Fergus Falls, Minn., which requested individuals to volunteer their time to the hurricane victims, he felt the necessity to offer his services to the people on the east coast.
“I thought it would be a great experience,” Derr said. “I’ve never been on anything like this before and I just lucked out as one of the guys to go.”
Derr left for New York on Nov. 2 when he drove from Bottineau to Carrington to meet up with another volunteer. The two men then traveled in a material handler (a large size bucket truck) from the Carrington community to Fergus Falls.
“We met up with the rest of the crews there and proceeded to take off Saturday morning, which was Nov. 3, with four bucket trucks with big material handlers, three digger derricks, one mechanic truck and one pickup truck for the foreman,” Derr said. “Our first destination was Bethpage, N.Y., on Long Island and we ended up in a place called Sunken Meadow, N.Y., where a man camp was set up for the volunteer linemen.”
As Derr begin his work in getting power back to the residents of this area, he stated that as he traveled through the area his mind often drifted back to North Dakota.
“As we traveled and got down to Long Beach, and inland, it reminded me of driving through Minot during the flooding,” he said. “Everyone’s belongings were on the streets and berms.”
Derr added that in the area he worked in, there was more environmental damage to the area than structural.
“The trees caused the majority of the problem,” Derr said. “They have trees that are like our huge Cottonwoods, but they are Oak trees that have no root base. It is kind of like our evergreens, they spread out instead of going down into the ground. So, when you drive by you see these mounds of dirt that are seven to eight feet tall with the sod rolling right with it. We saw very little house damage. The trees did most of the damage when the hurricane blew them over.”
By the time Otter Tail came into Long Island, millions of residents in the area had been out of power for 14 days, but Derr and his fellow linemen and crew members went to work right away with enduring kindness toward them.
“They were so gracious to see us come into their neighborhoods. They talked to us, were around us and were really nice to us,” Derr said. “It was really satisfying when we actually were able to close in a cutout and energize a theater. To see the lights come on and hear the cheers from the people was overwhelming.”
What was even more exciting for the people of Long Island was to discover that the men from Otter Tail came all the way from the Midwest.
“Residents of the area couldn’t believe we came from North Dakota and Minnesota,” Derr said. “And, they showed their appreciation to us while we worked by bringing us coffee and cookies. They were just so happy to see us. It was really nice.”
If coming from North Dakota was a jaunt, Derr stated that crews came to Long Island from even further distances than he did.
“We worked with a crew from Houston one night,” he said.
Although Derr saw the best of the people of New York in their trouble times, he also witnessed the tragedy they suffered during the gas shortage which took place immediately after Hurricane Sandy passed through the area, leaving millions without gasoline.
“As we drove through areas we would see blocks on top of blocks of cars lined-up and people actually standing in line with gas cans,” Derr said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
For the Otter Tail trucks, fuel was not an issue because the international electric and gas company, National Grid, brought in tankers and filled the linemen’s trucks to keep the electrical crews working toward getting the power back on.
Derr and the Otter Tail crew spent six days in the area restoring power to that area of Long Island, which brought peace to Derr’s mindset.
“I was very glad that I went, it was very satisfying to go help people,” Derr said. “It is just like working here. It’s our job and it was a satisfying job to do out there.”