Unsung Heroes

Unsung Heroes

Here in the mountains, during summer and winter storms, we often lose our electric power. The lights usually flicker on and off a few times before the dark silence sets in.
Our power goes out. We begin our ‘survival mode’ existence We light the laid fire in the wood stove, light the lamps and/or candles, and place homemade reflectors behind them. I make my reflectors by placing aluminum foil over pieces of cardboard and bending them to form a ‘V’. By placing these behind my candles or lamps, all of the light is reflected into the room, not lost in the darkness behind the light source. I make sure these are up out of the reach of the animals, for fear of fire, and I never go to bed with lit candles or oil lamps burning without supervision.
Here is what I do not do:
I do not take this opportunity to complain about my high electric bill. This is not the time or place to do that. With the outrageously high bills we have received due to the interim rate increase, I have heard about bills that were $400 to $500 dollars for December and January, even though some folks were without power for two weeks or more. I understand, I sympathize with you, but the person answering the Outage Reporting Line can do nothing about your bill. Taking your anger out on these people is not only misplaced, it is rude, and ties up the phone lines, preventing others from reporting their outages in a timely fashion.
Having spoken with representatives on the ORL many times, I have heard what some of you are saying. One of the most common angry complaints is this: “As high as my bill is, I expect better service than this! “, and, “Why can’t you people do your jobs so I don’t lose power?” or, “I see those trucks parked on the sides of the roads all the time, with those lazy ***** just sitting around! Make them get off their butts and get my power back on now!” and, finally, “Why aren’t the crews cleaning the trees away from the power lines in the summer time? If they did their jobs, we wouldn’t be without power now!”
These are very harsh words. Stop and think. That person sitting there answering that phone line has no control over what is happening in the field. They are there to take reports of your power outages. End of story. When you harangue the service representative, you are in effect, bullying someone who cannot fight back. Shame on you. I wonder, do you ever call in during normal office hours in the summer time and complain to the company? Or do you just let your anger and frustration boil over when your power goes out and then take it all out on the service reps?
Outage phone personnel take a tremendous about of verbal abuse, and it takes a huge toll on them. They work long hours to take reports and co-ordinate outage records, and to get these reports to the field crews. Although they are well-trained to do their jobs, it still ‘gets under their skins’ when you verbally blast them for something they can do nothing about.
ORL people can and do go beyond the call of service. One phone rep received a frantic call from an elderly, frightened woman. Her power had been out for 4 days, and she was running low on firewood, food and water. Her customer service rep noted her name and address, and immediately called Social Services and Emergency Personnel in the woman’s area. They responded by bringing in wood, water and food to the terrified woman. The rep’s response to my thanks? “It’s just part of my job.” Wow.
Okay, next, let’s consider the field crews. These men are out in the worst kinds of weather – rain, sleet, freezing rain, snow and high winds. They are digging holes to replant broken power poles, they are stringing new lines, tightening up loose lines, replacing transformers and repairing substations under conditions that have you hunkered down in your home, safe and sound.
Linemen are my heroes. For every adverse weather event that sends them out on the lines, I send up prayers for their safety. Every year there are, on average, six deaths in this elite group of courageous men. Think about it. While you are verbally battering the service rep, someone out there on a line crew, working to restore your power for your comfort, may be seriously injured or even dying on the job.
Linemen have no control over your electric bill. Their only responsibility during these storms is to restore your power. They cut out downed trees, pull power lines out of creeks and rivers, and work 12 to 18 hour shifts under unimaginable conditions. When you see them ‘sitting on their butts on the side of the road’, they are taking a much-needed and well-deserved rest break in order to stay in peak working ability. They are deserving of your thanks and praise, not your abuse.
How many of you have ever called after your power has been restored to say, “Thank you.”? I have noticed a wonderful pattern in our power restoration. When I talk with my service rep, I always get an estimated ‘return of service’ date. Over the past 22 years, 90 percent of the time, my power is restored well before this date. I think that is fantastic, and well deserving of praise, and I call the power company to give them my thanks.
If you are upset and irate over your electric bill, please direct your anger to the proper channel. You can
call, write or e-mail your complaints in a proper fashion without tying up valuable phone outage report time.

So, please, try to contain your anger and frustration, and use the proper channels to express your outrage. And, most importantly, say a little prayer for the safety of the crews and the linemen. They are out there literally putting their ‘lives on the line’, under the worst of weather conditions, working long hours to restore the electricity for our comfort.
Then, try to remember to call back and say thanks after your power is restored Your Outage Report Representatives and the working line crews will most definitely appreciate it.
Thank you, ORL representatives.

Thank you, linemen and line crews. You are my heroes.
I just thought you might like to know it.
theherbwoman
Copyright (C) 2010

The Price of Coal

I can’t quit crying.  My eyes are filled with tears as I write. 

As I watched the tragedy in West Virginia unfold, a childhood memory surfaced in my mind.  I was 7 years old, and my family and I, with the rest of our small community, were gathered around the mouth of a coal mine.  There had been a rock fall and a cave-in, and several miners were trapped. 

We stood there for hours, in the cold and wet, watching, listening and hyper-alert for news of any kind, good or bad.  I was tired and thirsty, and began to whine.  My normally gentle mother slapped me, knelt down and shook me.  “This is more important than your needs”, she told me. 

While waiting for the drama to end, we prayed, sang songs, and held each other tight.  We tried to comfort each other.  I remember hugging a little girl younger than me, about 5 years of age.  Her Daddy was in that mine.  She was standing silently near her family, with them, yet alone, and something in her silent pain pulled me out of my preoccupation with my own small discomfort. 

She and I gradually wandered over to the edge of the lot, and sat down on a damp log. We were trying, as small children do, to distract ourselves from the overwhelming emotion running rampant from the adults. She was shivering from the cold, and her little threadbare coat was too small to provide much warmth. She inched closer and closer to me, and I put my arm around her.  Her body was trembling from the chilly air, and with fear.  I began to rock her back and forth, humming a song, a child comforting a child.

All at once, the air was torn open with wailing and screaming.  The first bodies had been brought out, and there was no life in them.  The keening cries rose in volume; they took on a life of their own.  Not even knowing whose broken body had been found, she and I opened our mouths, and the grief poured out.

One of those bodies was that of my brother-in-laws’ father.   At the age of 17, it now fell on his young shoulders to suddenly become the man of the house, and to try and hold his large family together in the face of our greatest fear made reality.

I had pushed this memory far, far back into the remotest recesses of my mind.  It broke out of its’ mental cage as I watched the families in West Virginia make the journey from joy to grief.  The keening rose in me, and I mourned out loud.

These keening cries of grief are torn straight from the soul of the Appalachian spirit.  It lays bare the anguish, it is pure emotion, and it shreds the hardest heart among the listeners. 

There are no myriad layers of polite veneer back here.  There are no social pretenses in the presence of death.  There is just the agony of loss laid bare.

Compounding this tragedy was the miscommunication between the rescuers and the surface.  To believe that your loved ones were safe, and then to be slapped across the face with the brutal truth, put these people on an emotional seesaw nearly beyond bearing.  So much for technology.

Reality show?  This was a reality show.  Do you sincerely believe that Fox or any other network has a clue?  Survivor?  What a farce.  This is survival.  This is reality. The reality of this life is that my people die because the Federal and State governments in charge of rules and regulations governing safety are more interested in making sure that the white-collar owners and lobbyists continue to make the most money at the least expense.

I was astonished and disgusted by the litany of violations in the Sago mine.  It is, however, much cheaper to pay small fines, ($200) for each violation than it is to make the necessary and expensive changes to insure that this and other mines in the mining industry are safe. That’s called ‘good’ business – keep costs down and profits high.

As my husband and I watched this agonizing chain of events, we saw something that gave us some small hope of future change.  After the truth had been broken to the families, one of the family members verbally cut loose on West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin III.  There were several police officers, including West Virginia State Troopers nearby, and they started to move in to protect the governor. 

In an act of supreme courage and compassion, Joe Manchin waved them back.  He knew that this man needed to vent his rage and grief on an official figure, and he just stood there and took it.  Joe is West Virginian and Appalachian.  He knew just how quickly the raging emotions could have gotten out of hand, and he stood in there in the face of this man’s awesome rage and just let him pour out all his anger and grief.  He put this man’s emotional needs ahead of his personal safety, and I thank him for this with all my heart. 

We are encouraged by the brave actions of Governor Joe Manchin.  He has exhibited the necessary traits of understanding, compassion and courage that are desperately needed to address the problems and to try and right some of the tremendous wrongs continually being done to the mining communities of Appalachia.

Although little can be done to change the past, the fact that the mineral rights to the coal in Appalachia were stolen by glib ‘company men’ who befriended the mountain people only long enough to get their ‘X’ on a binding contract needs to be brought back out into the public eye.  It was a massive, wholesale theft of invaluable rights, and should be expunged from our country’s ‘black gold’ history.

Exploitation of these socially impaired people for their mineral rights was only the beginning.  These companies then employed the local men to dig their own coal, and sold it for the companies’ profit.  The history of coal mining in this country is literally ‘littered’ with bodies of Appalachian people.  They call it ‘the true price of coal’, and it is a price America should never have paid, and the Appalachian people can no longer afford to pay.  The coal that fuels America’s industry has been drenched with generations of Appalachian blood.

What hypocrites we are!  Our leaders carp about conditions in China, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, while ignoring the desperate straits of Appalachia.  We hear Bush, Cheney and Condi Rice talk about ‘human rights’ in undeveloped countries nearly every week. The Appalachian Regional Commission receives millions of dollars ($92 million for 2006) for improving the living and working conditions of Appalachian people, yet my people still have the lowest economic standard of living in the entire country!

It is this same administration that has gutted safety laws and environmental laws pertaining to ‘deep’ mining and mountaintop removal.  Have you ever seen what mountaintop removal does to the environment?  It fills in the breathtaking valleys, coves and ‘hollers’ that make Appalachia the most unique mountain range in America.  There are species of mussels, salamanders and wildlife that are found nowhere else in the world!

Why do we continue to cling to our way of life in the mountains? Why don’t we all just move away?  Appalachian people are bound to the mountains by much more than coal and blood.  When our Scottish forefathers made the long journey across the ocean and over the plains of the Eastern coast, they did not stop until they lifted their eyes up to the hills of the Appalachian mountain range.  When they saw the tops of the mountains shrouded in mist, their hearts told them they were home.

Have you have ever seen a computer graphic of how the continents of the world were once one large piece?  The Discover channel has shown this graphic in one of its’ fine shows.  If you watch it closely, you can see that as the continents began their shifts eons ago, the country that is now Scotland and Ireland was once physically attached to the end of what is now the Appalachian mountain range.  There is a band of red clay that runs through Appalachia to the end of our continent and continues across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland and Scotland.  Geographically, it is identical with the red clay here at home.

My people, in their racial intelligence, knew in their souls that they had come home, both physically and spiritually.  This ancient land called to their blood.  The King James Bible says it best in Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.  My help cometh from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

So much history, so much pain, so much agony, and all of it is unnecessary.  All of it is for profit, for the pursuit of the almighty dollar by people whose greed demeans the lives of good men and women who pay the ultimate ‘price of coal’.

My family and I have paid the price for your coal far too often.  It is my hope that Governor Joe Manchin III will take the lead in pushing for these critical, overdue changes in regulation.  I hope he will lead the charge in calling for overwhelming changes and strict enforcement on both State and Federal statutes.  It is a tall order, but Governor Manchin is a man of courage and conviction.  

In the meantime, I grieve.  My keening cries of today pave memory’s path to the two little girls sitting on a log and crying out to God:

“Daddy!  Not my Daddy!”