SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WSIL) -- Senator Dale Fowler addressed the Senate on Tuesday to talk about the efforts made by workers and volunteers in restoring outages and damaged infrastructure caused by the winter storm.
Senator Dale Fowler addressed the Senate on Tuesday to talk about the efforts made by workers and volunteers in restoring outages and damaged infrastructure caused by the winter storm.
Senator Fowler paid tribute to all the linemen, electricians, volunteers, first responders and workers for the countless hours of restoring power and working on getting things back to normal in southern Illinois.
Here is what Senator Fowler stated...
"Members of the Senate. Those of you, most of you probably know of the catastrophic ice and snowstorm that most of ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois and other areas of the region had received over the last few days. And I just want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all the linemen, all the volunteers, everybody that worked so hard to protect others. There's tens of tens of thousands of homes without power for many hours and still to this day there are homes without power. And all the other states, our neighboring states, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, Kentucky, that started rolling in with alignment trucks to assist the over 500 linemen that were working for hours upon hours upon hours to come into the rescue of my district and other parts of ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois.
So I know we always talk about our first responders and all the work that they do. And thank God, God bless them for what they've done over the last few days. But also want to pay tribute to those that had to leave their family, the linemen, the electricians, everyone that left their family for hours upon hours upon hours for the safety and security of the many residents that have gone without power. So I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone... To everyone that volunteered in warming centers, left their families at home to be able to be with the homeless, to ensure that they had a warm place to stay and food. The hundreds that we worked with down in ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Illinois, to all those volunteers. So thank you for this opportunity, Mr. President, but this is just an acknowledgement. And if we could, I'd like the body to just give.
All of our first responders and all those that worked tirelessly, all of our electricians and everyone for the work that they've done and are still doing today as they continue to restore power and get the trees off of homes and out of the streets. So I would just really appreciate that acknowledgement, Mr. President. Thank you very much."
