“Atta Boys” For A Local Government Agency

By J. Brent Pichard

For an engaged citizenry, healthy skepticism about government in general is prudent.  Why? Because left to its own devices and unchallenged by vigorous public scrutiny, government at all levels will grow and eventually confiscate – one by one – the wealth and liberties of a complacent people.

However, when an agency of government distinguishes itself as a tried, true and tested “servant of the people,” that agency deserves high praise, even from a skeptical, small government conservative. 

Such an agency is the City of Tallahassee Electric Department.

Very few gifts in the modern world are more widely used, least understood and universally taken for granted than the movement of electrons through a conductor. We call it electricity.  The history of man’s painstakingly slow discovery of this mysterious source of energy spans thousands of years.  Beginning perhaps when some ancient ancestor noticed that a stick floating in water, with a particular kind of pebble on one end, always pointed in the same direction, the long trek of discovery had just begun.  Over four or five thousand years, mankind has progressed from a crude awareness of the earth’s magnetic field to hydro-electric and nuclear power plants that produce this mysterious energy that lights the world.

For most of us, grasping the definitions of and relationships between volts, watts, amps and ohms is befuddling, notwithstanding dozens of websites on “Understanding Electricity.”  Thankfully, there is a small army of dedicated public employees who not only understand these things but who routinely handle this miraculous and dangerous force so our lives can be lived in safety and comfort – the men and women of Tallahassee’s Electric Department.

Tallahassee’s weather, love of trees and abundant squirrel population keeps the Electric Department on high alert.  In good weather or foul, day or night, holidays or days off, these folks are fine-tuned to emergency and spring loaded to get their customers back on line as quickly as possible.

And when the big storm hits, these workers are always there to do their job.

Most recently, this dedicated army – and their brethren from afar – turned the destruction of the May 10th tornadoes into an example of their skill and determination.

They work within an environment every bit as dangerous as the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.  Injury or death is everywhere: flooding, high winds, slippery roads, downed trees under dangerous tensions, chainsaws, “hot” wires, complicated hydraulic equipment plus the stress that comes from knowing that one mistake in judgment can spell disaster for you or a co-worker.

Most of us taxpayers don’t know how or even why they do their jobs.  All we know is that they do.  Losing power is a pain; but when it happens, knowing that 300 dedicated city employees stand ready to take their skills and courage into the streets is a blessing.  Thank you all!