Photo by Deb Gau The MMU workers who joined in hurricane response efforts were Tommy Flores, Curt Anton and Nathan Roeder.

MARSHALL — They spent days facing downed trees and flooding, and even got stuck in the mud once or twice. But a crew of Marshall Municipal Utilities workers said it was all to make a difference for Florida residents hit by Hurricane Ian.

“It makes the long hours worth it,” said Tommy Flores, a journeyman lineman at MMU.

Some of the people MMU employees helped were “overwhelmed” with happiness to get the electricity back on, he said.

On Friday, Flores, Curt Anton, and Nathan Roeder returned from a trip to help with hurricane response efforts. They worked to repair power lines and poles in the Bartow, Florida, area.

Flores and Roeder are both linemen at MMU. Anton works in operations at MMU, and served as a mechanic on the trip.

MMU has assisted other communities with storm response in the past, said Tony Mead, electric operations manager at MMU. Crews have worked to restore power in Granite Falls after severe storms, and even traveled to Florida once before in 2019.

This fall, the Minnesota Municipal Utilities Association organized a convoy of electrical workers and vehicles to help restore power after Hurricane Ian made landfall, Mead said.

Roeder, Flores and Anton volunteered to join the group.

“All the guys that went down there weren’t required to go down there,” Roeder said.

Flores, Roeder and Anton left Marshall early in the morning on Sept. 28.

“It was 3:43 a.m. when we left the parking lot,” Anton said.

The three met up with other Minnesota utility crews and MMUA representatives in Rochester and started traveling east. Around 40 people and 22 utilities vehicles were part of the convoy, Roeder and Anton said. Utility crews brought their own fuel and supplies with them.

The convoy’s destination was Bartow, which is about 40 miles east of Tampa.

“Ninety percent of the town was out of power,” Flores said. “A lot of businesses couldn’t really function.”

The Minnesota convoy was broken up into different work groups. The MMU crew were in a group together with utility workers from Willmar, Brainerd and Buffalo.

“We started off every morning with a job briefing, so everyone was on the same page with safety,” Roeder said.

A lot of the work utility crews did involved removing fallen trees and repairing power poles and lines, especially closer to town. While Roeder and Flores worked on the power lines, Anton made sure the equipment was working, and took care of tasks like traffic control.

“A lot of trees were fallen on power lines,” Flores said. “There was a lot more flooding outside town. We saw a lot of flooded property and roads.”

Working in those conditions had its challenges. Utility trucks got stuck in the mud a couple of times, Anton said. MMU workers even had to get into a boat to help repair one utility pole. A tree had fallen on the pole near a river, and broken lines were trailing into the water.

“We had to get the wires out of the water before cutting the tree down,” Flores said.

At the same time, the MMU crew also had to deal with a current, and keep an eye out for Florida wildlife.

The crew didn’t encounter any alligators during their time in Bartow, but they did see snakes, Roeder said.

“We got chewed up by ants — I know I did,” Flores said.

Anton, Flores and Roeder said they met a lot of good people while they were in Bartow, including local utility workers.

“The utility guys were great,” Flores said. “They were greatly appreciated, and they were surprised that we were all the way from Minnesota.”

Bartow residents were happy to see the utility crews and donated supplies like bottled water and nonperishable food for response workers.

“A lot of good people were cheering us on,” Flores said.