Power companies, tree services work to normalize Tallahassee

Brian Miller, Democrat staff writer

Scott Cowart and Jeff Sherman were jolted from sleep at 2 a.m. Friday when Hurricane Hermine ripped through Tallahassee and snapped a tree on the couple’s property on South Magnolia Drive bordering Indian Head Acres and Myers Park.

Joshua Shields of All-American Tree Pro cuts branches off a tree on S. Magnolia Drive that had fallen on a resident’s car.

Daylight allowed them to assess the damage: no tree on the house, the cars in the driveway just a little damage.

“It could not have landed better, so we’re very fortunate,” Cowart said.

That said, they were both blocked in and couldn’t go to work. They also had to hire All-American Tree Pro to come lift the heavy oak off their cars to prevent damage.

 “It’s such a high demand and it’s Saturday," said All-American Tree Pro foreman Joshua Shields. "I still have a tree down on my house that I haven’t cleaned up. We’re all neglecting our own families trying to help other people.”

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Prioritizing calls based upon severity, Shields says his company received more than 200 calls Friday from people in need. His crew has been working until 9 p.m. each night

“It’s been chaos,” Shields said. “I was already booked up for a couple months and now we’re busier than we ever wanted to be. This is our business and people need our help, so we’re working as much as we possibly can to help them.

“I imagine we’ll be working to clean up the mess this storm created for the next three months.”

William Johnson and wife Ethel had a large pine tree fall across their property and power lines, which sit on S. Magnolia Drive.

Down the road, William Johnson and his wife Ethel also were spared a tree hitting their home, but were waiting for a city of Tallahassee crew to come by and remove the large pine that fell across their driveway and came to rest on power lines.

“That power line has come down three times in the last six months,” said Johnson said, noting two other occasions when trees fell and knocked out his power. “We’re lucky which way the tree fell because it had fallen this way it would have demolished the house.”

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Johnson, who’s worked 36 years at St. Marks Powder Plant, figures he’ll have to drive through his neighbor’s yard to get to work Tuesday.

“I hope the city comes and gets this tree off the line,” said William, who cut the minor, non-weight bearing limbs off the tree himself. “We reached out to the city (Friday).”

Just a half mile away in Indian Head Acres, on Indian Head Drive, a city of Tallahassee utility crew worked to restore power to the neighborhood. The laborious process can involve replacing broken telephone poles and putting up new cutouts, insulators and crossarms. That could all be just to restore one circuit. The circuit then needs to connect to the substation.

William Johnson and wife Ethel had a large pine tree fall across their property and power lines, which sit on S. Magnolia Drive.

It’s not an easy fix.

“Right now, I’m just trying to get ahead of the game,” said foreman Bryan Alyea. “What’s down on the ground ... goes to the substation. We have to get it up before we can energize any of it.”

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The city has 13 crews out working all day and most of the night, and help has also come in from Gulf Power, Kissimmee, Lakeland and Orlando.

“This is the worst I’ve seen Tallahassee and I’ve been here 23 years,” Alyea said. “This is the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve called in other aid to help us.”

To restore one heavily damaged block, he estimated, could be a whole day’s worth of work.

“I got about four hours of sleep last night,” added Alyea, who lives in Crawfordville. “I’ve got no power myself. I’m in the dark like everybody else.”