Pee Dee Electric Cooperative sent workers to snow-blasted Kentucky in January and February, and to the western region of North Carolina last week, to assist areas with power outages due to weather.

Wednesday morning, several of the workers who traveled to Kentucky gathered during a break in a safety meeting to share their impressions of the area and its people.

“Everybody was pretty appreciative of us, the people were pretty good,” Kenny Simmons said. He said he’s worked hurricanes in Louisiana and Texas, and has gone to other snow and ice storms.

“It was long days, but it was well worth it. It’s good to be able to go up and help people out,” he said.

For Chris Jacobs, Kentucky was his first snow and ice storm.

“You just put on your clothes, and go do it,” he said. “Everybody treated us well and fed us good.”

“They were very thankful,” Dustin Marsh said. “Obviously, it was frozen. In the area we went to, northern Kentucky, it was mostly wires down ... Their issues up there, were they built their power lines across mountain tops and through valleys. Here, we put them beside the road - that was the main difference.”

Pee Dee sent two crews to Kentucky. One worked in northern Kentucky, where the problem was mostly downed lines, and the other worked in western Kentucky, where ice and trees had taken down many of the poles holding the lines.

Jake McGee said he worked in Kentucky for six days, and it was icy and cold.

“You know, they built the lines on the mountains, so every time you got out the truck, you were either going straight up or straight down,” he said. “It wasn’t any using the bucket at all.”

McGee said the community in Kentucky reached out to the workers while they were in town.

“The people were very appreciative up there,” he said. “About every storm we go to, they’re appreciative, and everybody’s willing to help. Up there, when we’d walk into a restaurant, if they’d see there weren’t enough seats, they’d get up and give us their seats.”

“(I saw) a lot of broke poles, a lot of wire down and a lot of mud,” said Steve Preslar. “It’s kind of rolling hills where we were, kinda like here, so it wasn’t flat, but it wasn’t mountains. They were real good folks, you couldn’t beat the people. The coop we were working for or the consumer, they were real good people. I even got a couple of invites to go back.”

“I seen some of the prettiest landscape there I ever seen in my life,” Matt Haywood said. “There’s a lot of water. It basically rained all day long the whole time we were there.”