Four men were shocked by the live wires, one of who was so severe, he had to be transported to the hospital.

April 28--When an emergency situation arises, emergency operations, ambulances, fire departments and police officers must be ready to react with a minute's notice.

Although Raleigh County EOC and Lester Volunteer Fire Department were both ready for action in the early morning hours Friday, one vital crew was not immediately available according to firefighters.

Lester Fire Chief Donny Hawley says crews from Appalachian Power Company took several hours to arrive at the scene of a structure fire in Glen White.

The call was received around midnight Thursday.

When the fire crew arrived on scene, Hawley said flames were coming out of the windows in two rooms. The fire then expanded into an area where power lines came into the house.

The lines fell, causing live power lines to be exposed on the ground in front of the house, even across one of the fire hoses, making the hose inaccessible to firefighters.

"While we were waiting on the power company, we had a couple firemen get shocked," Hawley said.

Four men were shocked by the live wires, one of who was so severe, he had to be transported to the hospital.

The 22-year-old firefighter was treated and released from the hospital, but Hawley says the power company should have been on scene quicker.

"This is the longest we've had to wait for them to come to a fire scene."

He says a long wait time is understandable if the power company is working with fallen trees or other issues, but for a structure fire, fast response times are crucial.

"We had to stop all ground operations while we were waiting on the power company," Hawley said. "We moved to one side of the house to do what we could, but then that's where the guy got shocked and had to go to the hospital."

More and more frequently, Hawley said, response times are becoming longer for Appalachian Power.

Appalachian Power spokesman Phil Moye confirmed that the response time was longer than two hours for this particular instance.

Moye explains that crews work seven days per week, 16 hours per day. Shifts typically end at 11 p.m., but some individuals remain on call at their home residences.

He said on Thursday night into Friday morning, five individuals were still working, four were responding to outages and one was responding to a power pole fire.

"We did the best we could given the circumstances. I don't think this is representative of our service response time overall," Moye said. "It's certainly not as good of a response time as we would have like to had. We got someone there as soon as we could."

Moye said there are fire departments in nearly all Appalachian Power service territories, but there are very few service centers in comparison.

"We simply do not have that kind of staffing. We are covering a broader area with less workers. It will always take more time for us to respond (than fire crews)."

He said Appalachian Power is still investigating why it took so long to respond and also how the firefighters sustained shocks.

"If there's an opportunity to improve our process or do something to help us respond more quickly, we want to do that."

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