Lexington-based company once again helping recovery efforts in wake of disaster

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) – Lexington-based Emergency Disaster Services has been boots on the ground in eastern Kentucky since Sunday, providing a place for utility crews to eat and sleep.

They are putting in long hours in bitterly cold temperatures and snow to help restore power and hope to people affected by the devastating flood.

“We’re just fortunate that we could help our fellow mountain communities once again,” said Matt Daley with EDS. “The only big difference is in 2022, we weren’t punished with snow and ice on top of that clean-up effort.”

Daley says he’s having to tell their crews to take things slow because of it, knowing slow means more time until normalcy.

“The job number one for us is making sure that everyone gets home,” Daley said.

He says it’s never easy responding to disasters on familiar ground.

“Being in the backyard essentially, in Central Kentucky, we were able to respond very quickly,” Daley said.

Within a day of the storm, he says they had four base camps set up. Most are in Pike and Perry Counties.

“What EDS does is provide that firepower to bring in all the assets, all the shelter and logistical equipment that is required of these crews to be able to stay away from home,” said Daley.

Each base camp houses about 100 linemen. Many, Daley says, are from out of state.

“There’s a lot of them who still have ‘Florida Power Light’ stickers from the last hurricane that we all worked together not too many months ago during Helene,” said Daley. “You just have folks who, like us, probably haven’t been home more than just a couple weeks outside of the holidays.”

Daley says bringing these communities back to life will be a long-term effort.

“You’re seeing peoples’ office furniture starting to collect in piles. Those big restoration efforts, people are getting ready for that. We’re just moving one problem to the next problem, to the next problem, and you hope that you can lay down feeling fairly confident about what tomorrow brings.”

Daley says they plan to move out of their Pikeville location Friday afternoon, but that doesn’t mean their work there is done.

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