The Gastonia Fire Department sent one engine, a support vehicle and four employees to the Morehead City area September 4-7 to help prepare for Hurricane Dorian and assist with recovery. Captain Brandon Workman, Engineer Lucas Rollins, and Firefighters Lee Huffman and Shane Stephens manned volunteer fire departments in Newport, then Otway, North Carolina. Most of the volunteers in those communities work as fulltime firefighters at paid departments, leaving the volunteer stations low on manpower.
Newport had little damage, but Otley experienced flooding. “We are fortunate that the City of Gastonia has the resources and allow Gastonia firefighters to respond to disasters like this,” says Workman. “Peace of mind means a lot to the locals during these times and we were shown nothing but gratitude by them.”
Gastonia’s Electric Division helped in the New Bern area. Eight Gastonia employees, two bucket trucks, a line truck and two other machines were in New Bern Sept. 4-8.
The Gastonia group worked a couple of 15-hour days restoring electricity. In this short video, Jody Kiser, Darby Carithers and Scott Nichols explained the type of work they did. https://youtu.be/AhAkumTVK_o
Other employees from Gastonia Electric who helped with Dorian relief are Matt Lambert, Brandon Phillips, David Fredell, Noah Lineberger and Patrick Isenhour. A big thanks to Emily Hicks of Electric who asked the questions for the video.
Lineberger says the best part of the hurricane relief effort was helping other people out.
