A statue commemorating the linemen that served Southwest Louisiana in the weeks following the landfall of Hurricane Laura was erected in front of the Phoenix Building, on the corner of Ryan and Kirby streets.

Master of Ceremonies  Brett Downer stated that the permanent art installation was supported by Oliver “Rick” Richard, CEO of Empire of the Seed and local philanthropist, and his wife, Donna Richard.

Downer recalled Rick’s reaction to hurricane recovery. “He said when he saw the caravan, the flotilla, the truck after truck going down the interstate headed this way, it gave him a full heart,” he said. “The fact that so many people, working professionals, men and women, came from so many places to help us out at a time when we needed it most, despite the worst destructive natural disaster in our history.”

He explained that the mutual agreement between utility companies to send aid in emergency situations is not a federal mandate, but something that utility companies do on their own volition “to help people all over the country.”

“This is a statue that honors linemen, the men and women who helped us and the way we help other people,” he said. “It serves as a reminder and an inspiration.”

Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter was in attendance to celebrate the unveiling. He believes that the statue is a testament to the strength of local communities and municipalities. He believes that the government can do great things, but “the government cannot do the greatest things.”

“The greatest things come from people within the community.”

Hunter stated that the original projections of recovery were disheartening, and there were predictions that SWLA would experience months without electricity. This was not welcomed news. “There’s a lot of people that expect things very quickly, and I get that because we live in the year 2022 and immediate gratification is sometimes what we expect and what we want,” he said.

Luckily, those projections were undermined by the work of linemen. “Entergy and the linemen that came from around this country absolutely moved heaven and earth and performed miracles to get us back to where we are today and where we were just a few weeks after the storm.”

Nick Akins, chairman and CEO, American Electric Power, explained that providing help is second nature for those in the electrical industries. “This industry is very different from many other industries,” he said. “We certainly focus and come together anytime there’s a storm anywhere in the nation.”

According to Akins, their purpose is to get electrical systems up and running as efficiently as possible.  “It is really important for us to stage operations, make sure we’re getting people in place, getting resources in place and scheduled to come down,” he explained.

This efficiency leads to satisfaction for lineman, said Akins. “It’s the line person’s finest hour to be able to restore service and see the faces of people when their energy is restored.”

“Hurricane Laura was just such a devastating event for this whole southwest region,” said Phillip R. May, president and CEO, Entergy Louisiana. “It truly is a great thing to celebrate our line workers.”

“They dropped everything to come to the aid of people they probably have never met.

May stated that line workers from 34 states and Canada rushed to Lake Charles to aid the city, totalling 26,000 men and women. These workers worked on approximately 14,000 poles and 4,500 transformers. According to May, they used around 30,000 spans of wire and repaired “ hundreds, if not thousands of transmission structures and lines.”

He cited their “physically and mentally challenging conditions.”

“16-hour works days, unrelenting heat and humidity, seven days a week until the job is done,” he said. “They rise early, work hard and ask for little in return other than the satisfaction of a job well done.”

Janie Stine LaCroix, the sculptor, stated that working on this project was “a wonderful experience.”

“It was just a huge honor to honor a very, very good hero,” she said.

To make the figure as accurate as possible, LaCroix used posed photos of local lineman and handled actual lineman equipment.

LaCroix, alongside her great-niece and Eve Gabilondo Riviere of Empire of the Seed, unveiled the statue to reveal a lifelike, bronze visage of a lineman, decked in equipment and preparing to work.