Hats off to the line crews

Central Electric Cooperative has had its nose bloodied in court — and in the court of public opinion — in recent months.

Some of the utility’s actions haven’t been too popular, especially in the Sisters Country. Tall steel power poles and massive new substations in the back yard are bound to raise the ire of neighbors.

But whatever you might think of CEC’s recent projects, you can’t fault the dedication and hard work of the crews that responded to last week’s power emergency.

While those of us who lost power due to a catastrophic equipment failure got up, shivered, cussed, and tried to figure out how to get the house warm and cook some breakfast, those crews were already out in brutal cold, figuring out just what had gone wrong and getting repairs underway.

Some of those crews were out for 24 hours in subzero cold, nursing the system back to life a little at a time.

We’d all rather the power didn’t go out in the first place. We’d all like to see it come back faster once repairs are made. But we should all be grateful for the will to work through the problem, despite bone-chilling cold and long hours on the part of line crews and the support staff that helped keep them in the field.

Jim Cornelius, Editor