CLINTWOOD, Va. – Dusty Robinson won’t be there to watch his children open their Christmas presents Friday morning – but he says they understand.
Instead, he’s here, more than 400 miles from his home in Childersburg, Ala., working to brighten Christmas Day for strangers in cold, snowy Virginia.
“It’s something I’ve just got to do,” said Robinson, a lineman and one of the more than 1,300 electric workers who’ve come from across the country to help restore power in the wake of a Friday snowstorm that left hundreds of thousands of people without power in Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky.
“I’ve got to miss Christmas,” said Bruce Clayton, a crew member from Pendergrass, Ga., who also has two children at home. “But, for instance, the lady in this house: she’s disabled, she’s probably cold. ... We go to help people.”
Clayton said their crew, made up of men from Georgia and Alabama, had to literally cut their way Sunday night through the downed trees in order to travel state Route 83, which is normally a main highway through the area.
“It’s what we do,” said Kenneth Gaddy, a groundman from Kingsport, Tenn., who was working with a different crew in Wise County outside the town of St. Paul on Monday. “They’re [all the crews] going just as quick as they can, trying to do the best they can.”
Donny Lewis, a foreman for Pike Electric who came from Erwin, Tenn., to help restore power in Wise County, said he gets a mixed reaction from people who’ve gone for days without electricity – some mean, some nice.
But he said his wife and four children are going through the same thing – and like many Southwest Virginia residents – are waiting at home in the dark while he works to restore power here.
He’s hopeful that by the time he makes it home some time after Christmas, his lights will be on too – and he’ll have a chance to celebrate the holiday, even though it will be a little late.
“It doesn’t matter what day it’s on, it’s just a matter of being with family,” he said. “We’ll have Christmas when we get home.”
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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