Protecting co-op employees

Pow­er out­ages, espe­cial­ly those that last mul­ti­ple days, are stress­ful for everyone—our mem­bers, our linework­ers and our staff. Whether dur­ing an out­age or just a nor­mal day, your co-op empha­sizes a cul­ture of safe­ty. Our pri­or­i­ty is send­ing each employ­ee home in the same way they came in that day. Safe­ty is at the cen­ter of every­thing we do, so it’s mean­ing­ful when mem­bers rec­og­nize this ded­i­ca­tion, espe­cial­ly after major storms.

When the peo­ple we serve think enough of their coop­er­a­tive to send notes of grat­i­tude or offer sus­te­nance to the men and women restor­ing their pow­er, it’s a great encour­age­ment to all of us at York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive. We espe­cial­ly saw these acts of kind­ness dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Helene while we worked tire­less­ly to repair dam­ages. Most folks are kind and car­ing, and they want to help the coop­er­a­tive in any way they can. These acts of kind­ness sus­tain us dur­ing the chal­leng­ing days of rebuild­ing elec­tri­cal infra­struc­ture and pro­vid­ing sup­port and infor­ma­tion to you.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, not every­one responds so gra­cious­ly to the stress of being with­out elec­tric­i­ty. Across our state, co-op employ­ees in the field and in the office have encoun­tered harass­ment and threats of vio­lence from frus­trat­ed mem­bers.

This kind of behav­ior only serves to make a dif­fi­cult job even hard­er. Dur­ing any out­age, major or minor, every­one at York Elec­tric is doing every­thing they can to return elec­tric ser­vice to our mem­bers as quick­ly and as safe­ly as pos­si­ble. Our employ­ees need to be able to focus 100% on pow­er restora­tion and the haz­ards that come with it with­out look­ing over their shoul­ders.

Dur­ing this year’s leg­isla­tive ses­sion of the state Gen­er­al Assem­bly, York Elec­tric will join oth­er South Car­oli­na coop­er­a­tives in call­ing for stronger pro­tec­tions for util­i­ty crews and employ­ees. The leg­is­la­tion is designed to deter threats or vio­lence against any­one repair­ing crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture dur­ing a declared emer­gency. Pos­si­ble mea­sures include stronger penal­ties and safe­guards aimed at ensur­ing respon­ders can do their jobs to get the state back in order after a dis­as­ter strikes.

But the Leg­is­la­ture alone can’t pro­tect util­i­ty work­ers from harm and harass­ment. You can join your neigh­bors in help­ing. Here’s how:

• Secure pets while ser­vice per­son­nel are on or near your prop­er­ty.
• Ensure gen­er­a­tors are installed and used prop­er­ly.
• Stay out of restrict­ed areas at our co-op office(s).
• Don’t approach util­i­ty crews at work, even to offer encour­age­ment. The work they are doing could be haz­ardous to untrained per­son­nel.
• Dri­ve slow­ly and care­ful­ly around util­i­ty work zones.

We do every­thing we can to keep elec­tric­i­ty flow­ing to your homes and busi­ness­es with­out inter­rup­tion. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, weath­er and oth­er uncon­trol­lable events are part of the real­i­ties of pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion, pre­vent­ing us from per­fec­tion.

On behalf of all of us at York Elec­tric, thank you for your patience, under­stand­ing and any encour­age­ment you can send our way and most of all, work­ing along­side us to keep our employ­ees safe.