Earlier this week, Matt Koch was busy helping his kids get ready for the Allegan County Fair.
His two youngest, Aiden, 9, and Carly, 12, show pigs, turkeys and horses at the event, an annual highlight for the family. In the middle of preparations for the big show, Koch received a call to report for storm duty.
“My wife said to me ‘seems like this happens every August,”’ said Koch, a 13-year veteran of the company who now serves as lineworker in charge. “And she was absolutely right.”
Like clockwork, Mother Nature has packed a punch just before Labor Day every year since 2021.
Koch remembers all of them and said that may be part of the reason his crew has worked so efficiently over the past two days to help get power restored.
“We’ve had the practice these last few years, and we are definitely no stranger to storms,” said Koch, who went to the Muskegon area on Wednesday and is in Clare today to join restoration efforts in the hardest hit areas.
“Things have flowed very well. We are locked in. And it sounds like all lineworkers are locked in around the state. That’s great.”
This week we restored 100,000 customers in just 24 hours, proof that our Reliability Roadmap – a plan to achieve fewer and shorter power outages – is working.
“We’re working more efficiently than ever,” he said. “I truly believe we have the right people who are well-trained in place who know what they are doing. That helps us handle any storm thrown at us.”
Koch, whose son Bradly Nye is in the company’s lineworker pre-apprenticeship program at Jackson College, is hopeful his crew is hitting the homestretch with work that needs to be done.
“Our job isn’t finished until every last customer has their lights back on,” Koch said. “Looks like that should be fairly soon.”
After the job is done, Koch plans to return home to his little ones to assist them with any last minute preparation work with the animals. After all – the Allegan County Fair starts next week.
