Residents Praise Butler Electric for Work During Storm

Butler Electric was praised for their work in resolving outages and helping with storm damage after by a borough resident who wrote a letter to the Butler Council which was read aloud at Monday's Council Meeting.

Resident Donald Turner said his Arch Street home lost power for about an hour and a half as a result of the storm and that thanks to public officials, it was restored quicker than many homes throughout the state. "Great job" and "many thanks" Turner wrote in his letter.

Councilman Stephen Regis, speaking on behalf of Councilman Bob Meier who is the liaision to Butler Electric but was absent from the meeting, said at one point, 6,500 Butler residents were without power because of the storm.

"It took about five days to get everyone running," Regis said.

Regis said the Butler Electric workers spent numerous hours working on lines to restore power.

"They really stay at it. They don't take a lot of time off," he said.

Borough Administrator James Lampmann said the road crews have also been chipping trees left at the end of residents' driveways that came down in the storm. Lampmann said the crews had been chipping for the past four days and that their work was not done.

"We'll continue chipping until we get everything off the curb," he said.

Lampmann also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has visited the borough and completed an assessment of storm damage.

Lampmann said more residents have sent letters expressing appreciation for the borough and Butler Electric's work.

"People are very happy with the response," he said. "It was a very difficult storm."