Hurricane Ian recently wreaked havoc in Florida as a category four hurricane with 155 mph winds, according to AccuWeather. Conway Corporation is aiding the state’s restoration efforts with a five-man crew in Orlando.

Hurricane Ian left behind a wake of property damage and caused more than 3 million homes and businesses to be without power, according to AccuWeather. 

Conway Corp sent a five-man crew to the city, joining more than 650 workers from 19 states to help Florida recover. Conway Corp sent the crew a few days in advance of landfall to allow for a quicker response to the damage.

Jeff Matthews, manager of video production and local programming, spoke on the statistics behind Conway Corp’s effort.

“Electric department manager, Henry Mason, picked a five-person crew from the volunteers who wanted to go help the people of Orlando. That group of linemen took two bucket trucks, a digger derrick truck and a pickup truck,” Mason said.

The crew was not paid for completely out of pocket by Conway Corp. 

“The Orlando Utility Commission pays the costs incurred by Conway Corporation. While there, our crew worked 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily once the Hurricane passed through,” Matthews said.

When the team got to work in Florida, they paired up with another crew from the Arkansas region and a group from the Missouri Public Utility Alliance.

Conway Corp is no stranger to restoration efforts. The company has sent response teams to natural disasters such as Hurricane Irma in 2017, Hurricane Michael in 2018, and Hurricane Delta in 2020. 

Conway Corp is a member of the Public Power Association, which is made up of utility corporations that work together to respond to disasters. 

Matthews said mutual aid is something that Conway Corp does not shy away from. 

“There are numerous benefits to being a part of mutual aid. In the event we suffered a widespread outage here that we needed assistance [with], our fellow Public Power utilities would come here to assist,” Matthews said.

Matthews said the company learns a lot from its disaster relief efforts. 

“Our assistance also provides the opportunity for our crews to learn; we learn how to restore electricity in the middle of devastation; we learn how to deal with meals, laundry, hotels, material distribution, etc. in a disaster with people unfamiliar with your system; we learn how other crews restore power in the middle of chaos,” Matthews said.

The disaster relief team returned to Conway on Monday, Oct. 3rd.