Roxbury, Connecticut - A small town in Connecticut has fallen in love with a work crew from Kalkaska, Michigan - the crew that rescued them from the remnants of Hurricane Isaias when it tore through the area on August 4.

Fifty line personnel from C. C. Power LLC, a utility contractor in Kalkaska County, were sent to help restore power in Connecticut and New Jersey along with crews from Canada, Illinois, Ohio and Indiana after Tropical Storm Isaias slammed the Northeast.

High wind gusts knocked out power to nearly a million customers in Connecticut. Statewide outages along the storm path "easily eclipsed" those of Hurricane Sandy in 2010. It was one of the largest power outages in the state's history.

By the time the assigned crew of 38 arrived in the Roxbury, Danbury area citizens were in dire need.

Local headlines read: 'Four days without power, Danbury family struggles to store medicine, breast milk'  and 'Danbury's elderly, disabled without power...'

Cadillac native Catherine Mason lives in a town about 30 minutes from the hardest hit area.

"Where I live, the winds were incredibly high, it came in very fast and my family was out of power for two days. We were lucky," she said. "I was driving along country roads towards Roxbury in the rural foothills of the Berkshire Mountains and that's where I saw signs along the road that said, 'We Love Michigan' and signs thanking the crews from Kalkaska. I was very proud."

Mason is an early childhood interventionist for Naugatuck Public Schools.

'Crews came and lit us up!'

"We are so grateful, they drove a long way to help us," said Barbara Henry, first selectman (mayor) of Roxbury. "We are a town of 2,200, one of the hardest hit towns with 99 and 1/2 percent without power. Seventy-five percent of our roads were totally blocked and all the critical infrastructure didn't have power...these crews came and they lit us up!"

When the crews arrived they were welcomed to Roxbury by Bernie Meehan, emergency management director, and Mayor Henry.  They also worked with liaisons from Eversource, a Connecticut power company.

"When we arrived we had multiple broken poles...wire on the ground and downed trees, typical storm stuff," said C. C. Power General Foreman Chris Matulewicz of Houghton Lake.

"The people of Roxbury were more than welcoming...they were willing to wash our clothes and provide lunches..anything we needed," Matulewicz said. "They were super patient and understanding. And that's not always how it goes all the time."

"These 38 men came ready to work and help us get our whole town up and running and they did it nonstop," Henry said. "I tell you I was hosting and toasting what they were doing on our Facebook page. And we had a lot of jealous towns around us. We were getting lit up and I can't say enough about these guys."

"We are so grateful," she added. "We didn't want another town to steal them. They were so nice and they worked like dogs. They wore masks, they social distanced and were very professional. I was very impressed."

Josh Godden, president of C. C. Power LLC, said that crews typically work a minimum of 16 hours a day, seven days a week in these situations "until it's done through rain and snow."

"I'm a little overcome with the welcome that these towns gave us when we got there," Godden said. "When we arrived the people had been out of power for several days. Normally customers are mad. But they took us under their wings. It was a great experience."

Cadillac News