WAUCHULA, Fla. — Meagan Albritton’s “tough guy” lineman husband claims he feels no emotion.
But Sunday evening, when he jumped out of his work vehicle to hug and kiss his wife in the middle of N. Florida Ave. in Wauchula, he was definitely feeling something.
“Sometimes, they bear the brunt of a lot of, you know, ‘When’s my power on?’ And they’re doing the best they can, and this is wonderful for them to hopefully feel the gratefulness from the community,” Meagan said afterward.
Her husband is a lineman with Peace River Electric Cooperative, and for the past several weeks, he’s been working almost non-stop with long hours away from his wife and three teens.
First, there were outages from Hurricane Helene. Then, Milton knocked out power to almost all of the coop’s customers in Hardee and Manatee Counties.
Sunday, a non-profit in Hardee County, Send Me Missions, got an idea. The group coordinated a community-wide effort to make signs, buy some noise-makers, and line the street to cheer on lineworkers as they returned to their makeshift headquarters for the evening.
A crowd of at least 200 people participated, including young people like Peyton Maldonado, 11.
“Thank you so much for helping us,” she said to the lineworkers. “We really appreciate you.”
Diane Smith, with a handful of balloons, stood along the road to shout her thanks to the workers too.
Like almost everyone, she lost power during Milton, but got it back fairly quickly thanks to local line workers and ones who traveled here from all over to help.
“In Hardee County, we are a family,” said Smith. “And if you look, we are appreciative.”
It’s appreciation that will spark emotion even in a tough guy lineman’s heart.
“When they go in the tent tonight and all have dinner together, hopefully they’re all, you know, the ones who are from here are proud of their community and the ones who are, you know, here for just a short time remember it as a place that they’ll be welcomed,” Meagan Albritton said.
