One of the Haithcock brothers’ earliest memories is watching their dad drive his bucket truck up the driveway at the end of a long day. No matter how tired he was, Danny always made time to entertain them with stories of his adventures on the job.
As other kids dreamt of becoming firefighters or astronauts, it was never a question what Josh, Zack and Christian would do.
“I’ve been around linework my whole life,” said middle brother Zack. “All I ever wanted to do was be a lineman.”
Oldest brother Josh, 37, was the first to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Years of watching his dad, uncles and grandfather “Pa-Pa” work storms and compete in lineman rodeos inspired Zack, now 26. Youngest brother Christian, 20, followed suit when he joined the Carolinas East float track crew full time in summer 2024.
“There’s not much more I could ask for than to have my three boys working for the same company,” said Danny, who still has the same desire to go to work after nearly four decades on the job. “It’s gratifying and satisfying work – doing your best to help your neighbors.”
Linework is one of the most important jobs in modern times – almost everything today is touched by electricity in some capacity.
- Josh Haithcock
Following the line life
Danny met his future wife, Melinda, at Timmonsville High School, near Florence, S.C. They graduated in 1986, opting to stay in the area to be near family. They lived in several homes, including one that was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, before moving into their current home nearly 30 years ago.
Melinda’s grandfather worked for Sumter Utilities beginning in the 1940s; her father began at Carolina Power & Light (CP&L) in the 1960s. So when Danny – and all their sons – became lineworkers too, she knew what to expect.
Over the years, linework has remained an integral part of the family bond. The same wooden dining room table that sits in Danny and Melinda’s kitchen today has hosted countless friends and family over the years – a comfortable gathering spot for laughter, making memories and countless conversations about linework.
“It’s just a natural thing to talk about for us mainly because we take a lot of pride in the work we do, and most linemen would say the same thing – there aren’t many jobs where you can do something tangible with your hands and make a difference for customers,” Zack said. “A lot of places you can have a job, but at Duke Energy, it’s a career.”
All in a day’s work
The sun is barely peeking into the morning sky in Cheraw, S.C., as Josh – a 14-year Duke Energy veteran – leads his team in reviewing the work plan for the day; they discuss each job and then take several minutes for a team stretch. With everyone warmed up and limber for work, the line team heads to the warehouse and loads up the trucks with equipment and supplies.
“Safety isn’t just in the day-to-day work and keeping the community safe,” Josh said. “It’s also taking care of the people you work with. Linework is one of the most important jobs in modern times – almost everything today is touched by electricity in some capacity.”
About 40 minutes south, Christian arrived home in Florence with the traveling Carolinas East float track crew after spending time in eastern North Carolina wading through rivers, swamps and flooded areas to access power poles and other infrastructure in hard-to-reach areas.
“We’re in mud or water pretty much every day,” Christian said. The custom vehicles are set on top of pontoons, weighing in at more than 50,000 pounds each.
Ties that bind
Danny oversees the Duke Energy Florence transmission line, the link between facilities where power is generated and local substations that deliver power to homes and businesses. He said it’s great to have Christian home for a while and finds his paternal instincts showing up even at work.
“The older I get, and being a supervisor, it’s important taking care of my crews and making sure they have family time and support when they need it.”
It's a responsibility he said matches Duke Energy’s commitment to hiring lineworkers in local communities where, unless storm duty beckons, line teams are able to live in and serve the areas where they reside. While the company supplies what is needed to be a lineworker – including training and competitive pay – for many in the field, the role transcends the job.
“So many of them wear [being a lineworker] on their sleeve – they want to be here, and it is a huge part of their lives,” Danny said. “And in many ways, we’re a family – there’s a bond that develops that goes far beyond just a paycheck and where you work.”
Down the street at Duke Energy’s Florence Operations Center, Zack’s team replaces a three-phase pole with lines that serve a nearby school. “The system has to be maintained just like a car would,” he explained. “We work on the existing infrastructure but construct new lines and replace poles too.”
It’s ongoing work like this that line teams perform year-round to help modernize and strengthen the power grid, making it stronger and more resistant to outages from severe weather like hurricanes and other storms, and improve reliability for our growing communities.
‘We’ve got this’
When Mother Nature unleashes her fury, it’s a companywide all-hands-on-deck effort.
About a week after Christian returned to Florence, Hurricane Helene hit western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina, causing severe damage to transmission infrastructure and destroying numerous electric transmission and distribution facilities.
Zack said, “Lineworkers stay close to home to help local customers first, but depending on the impacts, we can get dispatched to other service areas to pitch in. Storms mean extensive damage assessment, game plans and executing – it’s complicated, and we never know how long we’ll be gone.”
This fall, all four Haithcocks were deployed to help customers impacted by hurricanes Milton and Helene, which required substations, thousands of poles and power lines and other key system components to be rebuilt.
“We put family first, but when the power goes out, we’re serious about getting the lights back on and we prepare until we can’t prepare anymore,” said Josh, who would like to see his daughter and sons consider linework one day.
Duke Energy established 43 staging sites and base camps for Helene, the most in company history for a single storm. Some were used to gather resources, equipment and personnel, while others offered lodging, meals and laundry facilities to enable a quick response.
And the company deployed an army of more than 20,000 lineworkers, vegetation workers, damage assessors and others, a team that included Duke Energy employees and contractors, as well as workers from utilities across 19 states and Canada. Some of these teammates had lost their homes and yet they were out fighting to bring their churches, schools, hospitals and local businesses back online.
“I’m privileged to work in the same town I grew up in and go places to help people resume their lives,” Danny said. “The pride when folks in the community come up to our Duke Energy trucks and thank my sons and my teams for their work – it’s powerful.”
