SCOUTING REPORT | Hurricane help, Dakota fall colors, lawnmower wars, achievement stall

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Linemen from the South Dakota Rural Electric Association who deployed to help their fellow Americans recover from Hurricane Helene returned home after nearly three weeks in the field. They worked to repair the power grid with Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative in Pickens, South Carolina, where there were 64,000 meter outages and 800 broken poles.

“Tropical storm Helene tested our cooperative unlike any other natural disaster in our 84-year history, and we needed every ounce of help we could bring in to restore power to the 90 percent of our membership that lost power in this storm,” Blue Ridge Electric CEO Jim Lovinggood said.

The crew stayed in basecamps with workers from across the country. They slept in large army tents, but there was little time to sleep. Before the linemen could repair damaged infrastructure, they first had to clear downed debris.

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