Lexington teams send crews to Western Kentucky for storm relief

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Crews from Lexington and other parts of Central Kentucky continue to head out to parts of Western Kentucky.

“In disasters like this, this is where community is built,” said Lexington Fire Department Battalion Chief Jordan Saas.

The Lexington Fire Department now has 17 members in Western Kentucky.

“Several of the challenges we face now is time. That’s why we’re still operating in rescue mode. Time is of the essence. Survivability goes down as the day goes on. Another challenge is the weather. Last night reached below freezing, tonight is expected to do the same. However we are still planning on operating in rescue mode the rest of today and tonight,” said Saas.

As Battalion Chief Jordan Saas explained, his crews are working 12 hour shifts, primarily focusing their efforts at the candle factory.

“We remain hopeful there are still going to b rescues and crews are still operating in the rescue mode right now,”

Right now, all focus is on search and rescue.

“It is all hands on deck. We will come together, we are coming together, to help rebuild Kentucky.”

Joining the response teams in Western Kentucky, 800 Davis H. Elliot employees from Lexington and neighboring states were deployed to restore power where they can, and as quickly as they can.

“We’ve been on large scale power outages with hurricanes in Florida, but nothing like this. We work routinely for utilities, building their systems up so they can withstand storms, but nothing to the magnitude of this,” said Director for Distribution Operations in Kentucky Jake Green.

Green said this one also hits too close to home.

“Someone that we work with here, their grandparents lost their house. Fortunately they’re okay but when events happen in Kentucky we routinely serve the areas we’re helping right now. We know the area, which makes it that much more challenging, but that much more important for our company.”

They’ll be on the ground helping their own for weeks to come.

Green said they’ll have to completely rebuild power grids in many areas. They’ll work on building temporary structures to get the power back on.

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