In Missouri the municipal utilities band together in an alliance. Mutual aid agreements are signed that cover all the legal bases and determine insurance coverage etc in advance. Required a vote of the city council and signature of the mayor. Once in place, the agreement may not be used for years, then one day....
Working arrangements are so good that when we had a mid morning tornado, two towns had utility and road crews on scene within two hours. By the end of the day, the streets were cleared of trees. Within a couple of days, all broken poles were replaced and we were able to take over and string the conductors. Although the outage was several days for some, without mutual aid we would have been screwed. The agreement is you only pay overtime and consumables. But for our ice storms and tornado, we voluntarily paid the salaries, overhead and supervision of the straight time. Well worth the good will and some small compensation for them dropping their work schedule to come to our town. Working together is where it is at out here in the boonies and everywhere for that matter.
There are fire and police mutual aid agreements that provided the security for our damaged neighborhoods, enforced the curfew, and manned roadblocks. It warms your heart to see a volunteer fireman from some far away district drive over to pull a shift helping out. Those guys are the backbone of many communities, ours included. USA USA USA
Working arrangements are so good that when we had a mid morning tornado, two towns had utility and road crews on scene within two hours. By the end of the day, the streets were cleared of trees. Within a couple of days, all broken poles were replaced and we were able to take over and string the conductors. Although the outage was several days for some, without mutual aid we would have been screwed. The agreement is you only pay overtime and consumables. But for our ice storms and tornado, we voluntarily paid the salaries, overhead and supervision of the straight time. Well worth the good will and some small compensation for them dropping their work schedule to come to our town. Working together is where it is at out here in the boonies and everywhere for that matter.
There are fire and police mutual aid agreements that provided the security for our damaged neighborhoods, enforced the curfew, and manned roadblocks. It warms your heart to see a volunteer fireman from some far away district drive over to pull a shift helping out. Those guys are the backbone of many communities, ours included. USA USA USA