Cindy Panter, an EPB contractor, drives a forklift.
Staff photo by Dan Henry/Chattanooga Times Free PressLast week, the restroom inside EPB’s transformer shop was fully operational – stalls, sinks and smells intact.
Didn’t matter. Each day, Cindy Panter scribbled “Out of Order” on a new sheet of paper, tacked it to the door, curled into the fetal position and slept on a ratty couch crammed inside.
“That was my bed for an hour a day,” Panter said.
For the other 23, she worked. Sunk her hands in cooling oil. Drove a forklift in reverse. Repaired transformers – linchpins of the power line – and ultimately inspired her foreman to wonder, “Cindy, what’s it gonna take to get you home?”
She logged more than 160 overtime hours as a transformer expert contracted by EPB, one among 1,500 workers devoted to replacing more than 600 utility poles warped by the wicked weather.