Hughes & Coleman Hometown Hero: BGMU Water Department Volunteers

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - The floods in Eastern Kentucky called people from all over the state and the country to action. A group of volunteers from Bowling Green Municipal Utilities’ Water Department answered that call, spending two weeks restoring water service to over 3,000 customers in Letcher County.

Michael Mosely, a retiree living in Bowling Green, nominated the team after reading about their mission. “They were going into a place that they didn’t know what the hazards were, but they knew they were asked to help,” he said.

The crew of volunteers loaded up all the gear and equipment they could spare and headed to Letcher County, arriving on August 5. They soon discovered that the entire infrastructure needed to be rebuilt. This was just the beginning of the challenges they faced.

Mike Blankenship, Customer Response Coordinator, and member of the team said, “The terrain, logistics, debris, no cell phone service, and no mapping system like we have here in BG. We use iPads to locate water mains, valves, meters, fire hydrants, etc..; they use paper as-builts or blueprints if you will locate all their infrastructure, so it was a learning curve to get over that.”

The BGMU Water Department Volunteer Team managed to rebuild the county’s infrastructure which helped provide clean water to those community members. However, they don’t view what they did as “heroic” but as something that anyone would normally do.

Blankenship said, “There’s nothing heroic about the two weeks we spent over there. That’s just kind of what you do. We did nothing no different but the help we received after the December tornadoes.”

For stepping up to help a community in need and for doing everything it took to get the job done. We recognize the volunteers of the BGMU Water Department as this week’s Hughes & Coleman Hometown Heroes.

To nominate someone for Hometown Hero, go to our website, click the Hometown Hero tab and fill out the submission form.

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