Houston company feeds, houses hundreds of linemen working to restore East Texas power

LONGVIEW, Texas (KLTV) — When thousands of linemen converge on an area to restore power, they have to eat something. SWEPCO teamed up with a company out of Houston that has an efficient way to feed thousands, offer lodging and more.

Many have never seen or even heard of Lodging Solutions Emergency Services. That’s because they are in and out of a disaster area while area residents are cleaning up. Camp Manager Carlos Reyes says they are called in by power companies from across the U.S. after a disaster.

“We come in the next day, set up camp. Which means we bring housing, restroom, showers, sleeping quarters and of course the dining hall tent, where we can take care of all the linemen,” Reyes said.

The linemen staging at the Longview Fairgrounds are staying at hotels, so the only lodging trailers brought in were for the 20 Lodging Solutions employees making the meals. But they have access to many more trailers.

“We pretty much build a small town in a couple days for 500 linemen to 5,0000 linemen,” Reyes said.

SWEPCO External Affairs Manager Mark Robinson says the setup has changed the way staging area’s function.

“We used to go get all the food brought in from individual vendors and that is good. But again, you’re trying to find vendors that are open, trying to find people who have power and you cannot just let a thousand people go hungry,” Robinson said.

Reyes says it takes about eight hours to get set up.

“We got nice flooring. They’re not going to be on grass or concrete,” Reyes said, or in this case, ice.

Once up and running breakfast is served, then they prepare.

“Boxed lunches where they can stay with them, where they don’t have to come in for lunch time. They’ll eat it out in the field. And then at the end of the day, we’ll have hot food for them,” Reyes said.

Last night it was steak. Food is shipped in from Houston although there are some local purchases made. The process keeps linemen fueled and they don’t waste time trying to find lunch, maybe in the middle of nowhere.

“To bring everything back to normal, it takes a lot of work and a lot of people to get this done. And we’re proud of that,” Reyes said.

And in a few days, it will be like they were never there.

Reyes says when they get back to Houston the job isn’t over. There’s a lot of cleaning to do. He tells us a weeklong operation involves over a month of work.

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