With 7.4 million without power, utility workers get respect

Fort Lauderdale and New York (Reuters) - When more than 7.4 million homes and businesses are without power after a hurricane, utility workers tend to get noticed a bit more than usual.

That’s what Gus Beyersdorf, 40, and his colleague Nick Jensen, 32, utility workers from Wisconsin, found out while inspecting power lines in Florida on Monday. The two - among the thousands of power-line workers brought in from out-of-state by major utilities - spent about five minutes outside a house in Fort Lauderdale, when two cars with women who said they lived in the neighbourhood stopped to inquire about the return of power to their homes - obviously trying to get their attention.