Sunshine folks: L.I. electricians

Florida is regaining its juice with the help of 180 Long Island electricians who flew to the Sunshine State ahead of Hurricane Irma. The workers, all members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1049, have been deployed to Daytona Beach and Miami to help restore power in the wake of the powerful storm that swept the peninsula last weekend. “We arrived here ahead of the storm, so we would be in place when it passed,” said Greg Redmond, Local 1049 foreman. “We’re putting on a lot of lights. There’s downed lines, broken poles, a lot of blow fuses,” he said. About 90 workers were in Daytona Beach and another 90 in Miami, where the damage was much worse, he said. The Long Island crews would likely be deployed there another week or two, Redmond said. While Hurricane Irma certainly left its mark, it wasn’t the worst storm Redmond had ever seen. “Nothing compares to Katrina, it was complete devastation,” said Redmond, who flew to that natural disaster in Louisiana to help restore electricity there, too.