Earlier this month the three men did it again. This time to help the state recover from Hurricane Milton. New Ulm Utilities Director Kris Manderfeld said Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association (MMUA) received a mutual aid request from Florida’s utilities association ahead of the hurricane hitting Florida. The idea was to bring lineman down before the hurricane hit to limit delays in repair.

Once again Henderson, Devorak and Weber volunteered to travel to a hurricane disaster zone to assist.

“It’s an adventure,” Devorak said. “It’s nice to do something different once in a while.”

“We want to go help people,” Weber said. It’s also a chance to see how a different states system works.

New Ulm Public Utility line workers Brandon Devorak (left), Joe Weber (Center) and Jim Henderson stand by a New Ulm Utility Department truck before travel to Florida on a mutual aid assist. The New Ulm linemen along with other Minnesota teams helped Florida crews restore power to communities impacted by Hurricane Milton. This is the second time Devorak, Weber and Henderson traveled to Florida to assist in the aftermath of a hurricane. Two year earlier the men helped restore power after Hurricane Ian hit.

The local linemen left New Ulm on Monday, Oct. 7, the same day tropical storm Milton was upgraded to a hurricane. Later that day the met up with other MMUA workers in Rochester. Together they all traveled down to Florida in one long convoy. They reached Kissimmee, Florida by 2:45 a.m. Wednesday morning and got to work.

Initially the New Ulm linemen were sent to help Kissimmee Utility Authority (KUA), but they were rerouted.

“We went to Kissimmee first, but they didn’t get hit as hard as they were expecting so they rerouted us to Orlando,” Devorak said.

Florida had a website specifically set up to track where the most damage and most power outages were located. Orlando had among the highest power outages.

The men worked 16 hour shifts helping restore power to the Orland area. This include restoration of power lines, overhead line repairs and replacing burnt out fuses.

Devorak said their team did not need to replace any broken on down utility poles. Many of the poles in Florida are made of concrete to ensure they stay standing after a major storm. However, the high winds will tear out the power lines.

Weber said there were a few poles damaged by lightning strikes. The were a number of thunderstorms caused by the hurricane.

The repair process was a unique experience for the linemen as the electrical setup in Orlando, Florida is a little different from New Ulm, Minnesota.

“There is a lot of little nuances with all their equipment setup different,” Weber said. “Things are routed differently. The fusing style is different.”

Each team of lineman had a local utility representative telling them how the work should be done. The crew managed to complete the work by Sunday, Oct. 13 and began the return trip to New Ulm.

Mutual aid assists are not uncommon for NUPU workers, but most are in state requests. In Minnesota the most common mutual aid request is wind damage. Henderson they have assisted Lake Crystal following a windstorm and Redwood Falls after a tornado.

Devorak has traveled to Iowa to assist communities hit by ice storms. This recent mutual aid request is their second trip to Florida. The New Ulm lineman team said the Florida utility workers and residents of the Orlando community were extremely grateful for NUPU’s assistance.

“Even the people in the hotel we stayed are said thank,” Weber said.

All three said they would absolutely return to Florida is they are needed again.