This is not the article I planned. I drafted a story about another local organization doing good work, but I keep coming back to this story, these people. I am talking about the construction workers, the truck drivers, the utility crews, those men and some women who come from all over the country to do for us. They do for us every day, before, during and after natural disasters, and I feel we take them for granted.
In October 2024, just after Hurricane Helene, I met six young men getting into their trucks after picking up lunch from the grocery store. I asked them where they are from. Arizona. Mississippi. Florida. Kentucky. California. Louisiana. I thanked them personally for coming so far to help us. Uniformly, the answer was, “We’re happy to help, ma’am.”
Since then, I have been deeply interested in the lives of these people, wondering what brings them halfway across the country to dig us out. Work, of course. Every time I mention it to him, my friend replies, “They make good money.” I retort, “Yes, but that is not the point. They come from all corners of the country, they leave their families, and they work all day long. I hear them start their equipment at 7 a.m. and they do not stop until 7 p.m., seven days a week, rain or heat or snow.” “Yes,” says he, “and they make overtime.” I was not satisfied. I remained curious, and I set out to learn more.
At a discount clothing store, James was shopping for cheap work clothes. James got a job directing trucks into a transfer station. Without my asking, he said he could “potentially clear $1000 a week.” He earns $12 an hour plus time-and-a-half after the first 40 hours, so a 60-hour week means $840 before taxes. He wakes up at 4 a.m. to walk the dogs and to eat breakfast in time to arrive at the site by 6 a.m. Since he does not like to eat with dirty hands, he skips lunch. When he gets home at 7 p.m., he walks the dogs and feeds himself before going to bed and starting over in the morning. James retired 5 years ago at age 75 but he needs the money.
When I asked about truck drivers, James told me they strain to haul tons of oak trees up and down the mountain roads, and the trucks often break down. Unbeknownst to me, these truck drivers are independent contractors who use their own equipment. Some owner-operators can make up to $50/hour, depending on the freight, but that does not appear to be the going rate for independent drivers hauling logs in western North Carolina. Floyd, a one-time truck driver, said that company drivers working full time can make $85,000 a year. “That sounds good,” he agreed. However, in Floyd’s scenario, drivers are required to work at least 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. When they are not driving, they must check the brakes, tires and fluids every day and do a full safety check every 10,000 miles. They often have unplanned repairs, so their work week could extend to 80 or 90 hours. This translates to $20/hour before taxes and expenses.
Andrew and his wife Lia recently arrived from Maine to help repair the dam at Lake Lure. They travel all over the country, wherever the work takes them. It works for them, because they are a couple traveling together, and their daughter is grown. However, “A lot of guys get divorced,” Lia told me. “Their wives don’t like it. Their kids don’t like it. The guys are gone for a long time, and the wives have to do everything at home.” For that reason, said Duane, a retired truck driver, many men go home on the weekends, even if home is Alabama or Florida. They drive because it is less expensive than flying, though they may spend only one night at home before returning to work. For drivers coming from places as far as Maine, though, going home means missing a full week of work.
What about utility workers? Their spouses don’t like it, either. They go out at all hours, in any weather, in distressed areas, to literally turn the lights back on. Travis is a 25-year-old man from a cattle town in western Kansas who became a lineman after high school. He is 6’5”, young and muscular and built like an oak tree, and he told me the job is dangerous, scary, extremely difficult and physically demanding. After 7 years, he has constant back pain and is looking for a new career.
This, I will tell my friend, is what it takes to earn “good money,” to make overtime, to find and to keep work. “Obviously, it’s worth it, or they wouldn’t do it,” he will assure me. Maybe so. Maybe it’s what they know, and they make it work so they can support themselves and their families. Even so, we need not take them for granted. Next time you pass workers along the road, give a friendly wave or a shout of thanks. Without them, our homes would be dark, our roads impassable and our lake unusable. Thank goodness for overtime.