Cooperative Living August 2017 - 4

Viewpoint | by Richard G. Johnstone Jr., Executive Editor
ISSN 1529-4579
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
Executive Editor
BILL SHERROD
Editor
LAURA EMERY
Field Editor
JANET BAILEY
Production Manager
LAURIE MILLS,
Apple Eye Studio, LLC
Graphic Designer
AMANDA S. CUNNINGHAM
Advertising Sales
TOMMY CAMPBELL
Design & E-Media Specialist
To contact magazine:
9 a.m.-5 p.m. M-F
Phone: (804) 346-3344
Or at any time:
Fax: (804) 346-3448
Email: bsherrod@vmdaec.com
Web: www.co-opliving.com
Published by the VA, MD & DE Association
of Electric Cooperatives
LARRY C. HOWDYSHELL
Chairman
JAMES E. HUFFMAN
Vice Chairman
HERBERT R. PATRICK
Secretary
FLETCHER B. JONES
Treasurer
RICHARD G. JOHNSTONE JR.
President & CEO
Board of Directors: R. Wayne Browning, Belvin Williamson, Jr.,
A&N; C. Michael Sandridge, Michael J. Keyser, BARC; George N.
Goin, Gary E. Wood, Central Virginia; Robert E. Arnold, Michael
I. Wheatley, Choptank; Jeannette S. Everett, Steven A. Harmon,
Community; James E. Huffman, Shawn C. Hildebrand, CraigBotetourt;
Patricia S. Dorey, J. William Andrew, Delaware;
Fletcher B. Jones, John C. Lee, Jr., Mecklenburg; Russell G.
Brown, Greg W. White, Northern Neck; J. Manley Garber, Stan C.
Feuerberg, Northern Virginia; Dale McNiel, Randell W. Meyers,
Powell Valley; Herbert R. Patrick, Micheal E. Malandro, Prince
George; Richard C. Oliver, Kent D. Farmer, Rappahannock; Larry
C. Howdyshell, Michael W. Hastings, Shenandoah Valley; Frank
W. Bacon, Jeffrey S. Edwards, Southside.
To advertise in Cooperative Living, contact:
Amanda Cunningham (804) 346-3344
National Advertising Representative: NCM,
611 South Congress Ave., Suite 504,
Austin, Texas 78704 * 800-626-1181
Member of the NCM network of
publications, reaching more than
8 million homes and businesses.
PRESSRUN . . . . . . . . . 522,302
COOPERATIVE LIVING (USPS 473-300) is
published 10 times a year, monthly except for
combined March/April and November/ December
issues, by the Va., Md. & Del. Association of Electric
Cooperatives. POSTMASTER, address changes
should be sent to: Cooperative Living, 4201
Dominion Boulevard, Suite 101, Glen Allen, VA
23060, (804) 346-3344. Periodicals Postage paid at
Glen Allen, VA, and additional mailing offices.
Subscription: $4.99 per year for members of
subscribing co-ops; $10 per year for all others.
ADVERTISING published is accepted on the
premise that the merchandise and services offered
are accurately described and willingly sold to
customers at the advertised price. Neither this
magazine nor the electric cooperatives in Virginia,
Maryland, and Delaware endorses any products or
services advertised herein. If any readers encounter
non-compliance with these standards, they are
asked to inform the Editor.
A storm enters the record books, a word enters the common lexicon,
and the power of cooperative mutual aid is proven again during the
summer of 2012.
I
t was as if a powerful torrent breached a
massive dam in the darkness, unleashing
destruction onto a slumbering citizenry.
Tearing across the landscape, though, was not
a wall of water ... but of wind.
Fed generously by intense heat and
smothering humidity, this superstorm was an
airborne equivalent of class 6 white water.
Rushing, surging, tearing eastward, it traveled
some 800 miles over 18 hours, its winds
peaking at 91 mph in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
according to the Wikipedia page devoted to
this single storm. This same source also reports
that the storm's damage total of $2.9 billion is
topped only by the 25 most damaging Atlantic
tropical cyclones on record.
In the storm's mammoth wake were uprooted
trees, flattened street signs, tangled power lines,
22 reported deaths and millions of power
outages, from the heart of the Midwest to where
Atlantic waters lap onto the land of Virginia's
Eastern Shore.
Many of us learned a new word as we were
reminded once again that nature's fury has
many forms and faces, in every season. This
storm was a " derecho " (Spanish for " straight " ),
a fast-moving, widespread straight-line
windstorm accompanied by thunderstorms.
Across Virginia, the derecho knocked out
electric service to over 1.2 million people,
including more than 150,000 electric
cooperative member-owners. Then-Gov. Bob
McDonnell noted at the time that it was the
largest non-hurricane electric-service outage
in Virginia's history.
Over the next week, additional intense
storms formed in the derecho's footprint,
fanning across the landscape and causing more
power outages. Rarely have we been reminded
so powerfully of how vulnerable we are as
individuals, how strong we are as a community.
While the storm's name was not familiar, its
damage certainly was, at least to the line-crew
members of Virginia's 13 locally owned electric
cooperatives. As soon as possible after the storm
passed, cooperative line crews began the
painstaking process of repairing - and
frequently rebuilding - miles upon miles of
2
electric lines. Virginia's cooperatives also
immediately fortified the efforts of their local
crews by bringing in additional line crews and
equipment from unaffected, or less-affected,
cooperatives in other states.
On that Saturday morning, June 30, as Virginia
cooperative linemen and support staff were
underway with a grueling schedule of aroundthe-clock
work to locate and repair the derecho's
damage, on the way to help them were
lineworkers from cooperatives in five nearby
states. Lineworkers from four additional states
soon joined the wave of assistance, ultimately
creating an auxiliary army of over 300 lineworkers
and over 150 specialized vehicles and equipment,
from digger-derricks and bucket trucks to
pole trailers.
One of the seven cooperative principles calls
for " cooperation among cooperatives. " The
derecho was powerful, but fleeting. Cooperative
mutual aid is powerful, and enduring. As are the
linemen who carry out its grueling work.
After the derecho, the home crews and assisting
linemen were not just working long hours in
difficult surroundings, fighting temperatures that
topped 100 degrees each day. They were also
dealing with the physical duress of heavy tool
belts - and safety helmets, clothing and gloves
- that would leave most of us in a heap.
Thankfully, those few who are able to measure up
to the difficult demands of linework are highly
skilled, highly trained and highly motivated.
Countless cooperative member-owners
expressed appreciation for the extraordinary
efforts of the line-crew members, in ways as
varied as the individuals themselves. Some fed
the lineworkers with words of praise: in person,
through homemade signs, on social media sites.
Others fed them literally, with offers of water or
food. Whatever form it took, each outreach fed
the spirits of those laboring long hours to get the
power back on.
In these uneasy times, it's surely a tribute to
what Abraham Lincoln called " the better angels
of our nature " that five years after, the most
enduring memories of the derecho are not of its
destruction, but of the sense of community that
was invoked and displayed in its aftermath. 
www.co-opliving.com
Five Years After ...
http://www.co-opliving.com http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living August 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living August 2017
