In Ukraine, power plant workers fight to save their ‘child’
A POWER PLANT, Ukraine — Around some of their precious transformers the power plant workers have built protective shields using giant concrete blocks, so they have a better chance of surviving the next Russian missile bombardment.
Blasted out windows in the power plant’s control room are patched up with chipboard and piled-up sandbags, so the operators who man the desks 24/7, keeping watch over instruments, are less at risk of being killed or injured by murderous shrapnel.
“As long as there is equipment that can be repaired, we will work,” said the director of the plant.
Because the plant can’t function without them, the operators have readied armored vests and helmets to wear during the deadly hails of missiles, so they can stay at their posts and not join less essential workers in the bomb shelter.
Each Russian aerial strike causes more damage to the walls already pockmarked by explosions, and raises more questions about much longer Ukraine’s energy workers will be able to keep homes powered in winter’s subzero temperatures.
And yet, against all odds and at the cost of their lives, they keep power flowing. They’re holding battered plants together with bravery, dedication, ingenuity and dwindling stocks of spare parts.
Power is hope in Ukraine and plant workers won’t let hope die.
In their minds, the plant is more than just a place where power is made. Over decades of caring for its innards it’s become something they have come to love and that they desperately want to keep alive.
“The station is like an organism, each organ ... has some significance. But too many organs are ... damaged,” said Oleh. He has worked at the plant for 23 years.