Alabama Power at Chamber

By Glenn Collins
Friday, November 4, 2011 | 2:11 PM
https://hbtv.us/news/?story_id=940

Alabama Power's Joseph Brown, Mark Crews, Frank Tidwell and Melinda Weaver along with Gary Warren and Mayor Ken Sunseri at the Haleyville Area Chamber of Commerce meeting Friday, November 4, 2011.

Alabama Power replaced 4 million feet of wire and 7,000 poles in seven days following the April 27 tornados that devastated Alabama and killed hundreds. Cost for the restoration of generation, transmission, and delivery could top $180,000,000. What did Alabama Power learn? “We learned that training matters,” Alabama Power Western Division Vice President Mark Crews said Friday after the Haleyville Area Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting. “We need to pass our knowledge from the older crews to the younger crews. We need to ensure 'institutional memory' goes on,” Crews added.

Crews praised Haleyville for its efforts in the recovery process. He especially praised Frank Tidwell for all his work in setting up the staging operations at the JRTC (New Amory). Of his company, he said, “They asked what I needed (to facilitate the recovery), I told them, and they sent it.”