Throughout the last few days of March, the state of Michigan was hit with multiple storms, some bringing tornadoes and some bringing several inches of ice. In most of the areas, it was necessary to “rebuild” instead of just “repair” the damaged infrastructure. More than 100,000 members of electric co-ops suffered outages as a result.

When the call came out for mutual aid, two NWEC linemen volunteered to join more than 1,400 other co-op employees from across the nation to assist our neighbors to the north. Cooperation Among Cooperatives is a guiding principle of all cooperatives and mutual aid when disaster strikes is a direct reflection of that principle.

Linemen Nolan Swank and Braden Miller spent nearly two weeks as part of a crew that helped Great Lakes Energy Co-op clear downed trees, damaged poles and other equipment. With over 3,000 poles, hundreds of transformers and miles of broken wires that needed replacing, the first step was removing all the debris and damaged equipment so that the construction crews could begin to rebuild the system and restore power for their members.