Mississippi Power employees have spouses on the front lines of COVID-19 care

Mississippi Power’s employees at our Generation facilities and Power Delivery line crews are at the front lines of providing reliable service to our customers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors, nurses, and countless other health care and hospital workers are at the front lines of caring for those infected with the virus.

Sometimes, those world’s overlap.

“We are taking additional steps around the house just like everyone else is,” said Plant Daniel Safety Specialist Micah Sawyer, whose wife Cortney is a registered nurse with Memorial Hospital. “We’re sanitizing everything, getting groceries delivered and limiting travel to only essential trips around town.”

Carla Haney, a Public Relations project manager, has always been proud of her husband Rich, who’s been an emergency room nurse at Memorial Hospital for 20 years. When they found out Rich had handled a positive COVID patient, they immediately altered their daily household routine.

“We began to self-monitor for fever twice a day, started sleeping in different areas of the house to minimize contact and increased hand washing,” Haney said. “We discouraged any visitors to our home during a 14-day timeframe and didn’t go to public places.”

Haney added they had to have a separate conversation with their 4-year-old foster grandson. “We told him we had cooties and he couldn’t come over. I still get daily calls asking if we have cooties!”

At the Meridian Fleet Service Shop, Jason Burt takes care of the vehicles that linemen and electric servicemen drive. His wife Melody, a registered nurse at Baptist Hospital in Jackson, is taking care of patients after they undergo surgery.

“She’s always been a careful nurse who’s been working for more than 20 years,” Burt said. “Her schedule hasn’t really changed much, but they’ve been incredibly busy.”

Like many power delivery employees, Line Construction and Maintenance Supervisor Michael Palmer has been incredibly busy over the last few weeks helping restore service after several rounds of severe weather passed through the Pine Belt. Palmer’s wife Brittany is a registered nurse and the manager of the Hattiesburg Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Department.

“She’s been working full speed and we’ve joked that this is the health care version of a power outage,” Palmer said. “The clinic has started offering telehealth appointments to all patients to minimize exposure. She’s been really involved in that process. Cardiology is an essential service, so being available to their patients has been a priority.”

In Ocean Springs, Jimmy Dennis, a senior maintenance specialist at Plant Daniel, has had to make some modifications to his home.

“My wife Lindsey is a nurse practitioner at the new AlphaCare Urgent Care,” Dennis said. “We’ve turned our laundry room into a decontamination room. When she comes back home from a shift, that’s the first place she goes, and her uniform goes straight into the washing machine.”

Back at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Communication Specialist Kaila Moran Griffith’s husband Carter has been working four 12-hour shifts each week in the emergency room. Carter is now working in the designated COVID-19 unit, where patients are treated before they’re discharged to recover at home or sent to the intensive care unit for further treatment.

“Carter and his co-workers are the ones who must care for and test patients for COVID, relay information to loved ones and treat patients that are being admitted to the hospital for other medical emergencies,” Griffith said. “Our community really is in the best hands with these healthcare workers. I’ve had friends who’ve had loved ones visit the ER while Carter’s working, and I always get texts and calls telling me to thank him for the care and empathy he showed them.”

Every employee we spoke with mentioned how proud they are of their spouse for the work they’re doing during this crisis.

Burt summed it up nicely: “She never complains about having to work. She knows the people they’re treating need help now more than ever.”

Mississippi Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company (NYSE: SO), produces safe, reliable and environmentally responsible energy for more than 188,000 customers in 23 southeast Mississippi counties. With nearly 160 megawatts of approved solar energy capacity, Mississippi Power is the largest partner in providing renewable energy in the state of Mississippi. Visit our website at mississippipower.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

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