RMLD Lineworkers Aid Hurricane Ian Response In Florida

READING, MA — A pair of Reading Municipal Light Department lineworkers joined national efforts this week to support Florida ahead of the impacts of Hurricane Ian, traveling with a coalition of local professionals to Jacksonville, Fla.

Reading Municipal Light Interim General Manager Greg Phipps confirmed the trip on Wednesday, saying that lineworkers Phil LaFleur and Steve Smith were part of a team of 56 workers from 25 local municipal light plants in the southern New England region.

“RMLD is honored to be part of the Southern New England mutual aid team,” Phipps wrote in a statement to Patch.

See full coverage of Hurricane Ian.

Reading Municipal Light serves customers in Reading, Wilmington, North Reading and parts of Lynnfield. Personnel traveled with a department bucket truck to Jacksonville to work with the Jacksonville Electric Authority.

There, the team was scheduled to help quickly restore power after any outages during Ian’s impacts.

The Jacksonville Electric Authority serves customers in Duval and Nassau counties as well as parts of St. Johns and Clay counties in northeastern Florida.

Ian drew attention and prompted widespread warnings in recent days as it blazed north over parts of Cuba toward Florida.

The storm intensified into a category four hurricane before landfall on Wednesday, whipping 150-mile-per-hour winds and major storm surge as it came ashore near Fort Myers, Fla.

Local mutual aid operations in Florida were organized by the New England Public Power Association and Littleton Electric, according to Phipps.

Local lineworkers from Reading Municipal Light, the Peabody Municipal Light Plant, Danvers Electric and the Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light Department left Massachusetts early Tuesday morning, as noted in a separate message from Wakefield Municipal Gas and Light on social media.