Give thanks to Far West, not criticism

This letter is in response to the comments made by Barbara Gilkey in her Sept. 19 letter to the editor.

I also live in the Foothills. I was out all day the day after the storm in early September, going back and forth to get around the damages, trying to get supplies for my family due to the outage. On just about every street I had to crisscross to get around the damages, I can say I found Far West employees cleaning up.

I found the owner at the Far West office talking to people. I later saw him talking to the APS crews, and still later I saw him down at the buildings at the end of Foothills Boulevard.

I, like everyone else, had no power, no water and have an elderly mom I am caring for. As uncomfortable as this outage was, I am not so blind that I couldn't see that all were trying with great effort to rectify this.

I took the time to ask what was being done. The power outage with the poles going down wasn't just the issue. The water plants were under water and flooded. Far West also had multiple generators but had to get the water out in order to operate. I understand the city of Yuma did offer the one generator it had and Far West Water took it to use.

So what would Gilkey do if she lived in the Midwest where tornadoes occur or on the coast where hurricanes occur? Those people go without power for days, sometimes weeks, even with all the warning and preparations taken.

I am grateful for the crews that worked all night and all day to try to get things up and running, including Far West Water! I hope Gilkey is as adamant in her comments when APS hands her another rate increase or ... could her motive for being so vocal about Far West alone be a different agenda?

We all were affected by this outage, but I choose to say thank you to all crews, including Far West Water and Sewer!

Kathy Wilson

Foothills