We are as guilty as everybody else by continuously praising police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians and other first responder and sometimes lose sight of other public workers who make our lives better.
Don't get us wrong, first responders deserve all the credit in the world. Most of us wouldn't have their jobs even if we were paid much less doing it as a volunteer. Towns and churches hold events to honor those men and women. Those events are needed and appreciated. We need to tell them thank you.
But we feel that sometimes we overlook the employees who work day in and day out in our utility departments. We are quick to complain that a leak hasn't been fixed or a pothole hasn't been filled.
We see the red lights of a firetruck at 2 a.m. or the blue lights of a police car, but we seldom notice a utility worker in a watery hole a 2 a.m. fixing a problem that could affect the whole town.
As we began to look into the events of Tuesday morning's failure of a sewer lift station in Flomaton we saw the dedication, desire and work ethic of Flomaton's utility department. The same could be said about the workers in Century, Jay, Atmore, Brewton or East Brewton.
Flomaton Utilities Superintendent Shaun Moye help prevent a possible major health and public safety issue when the sewer pumps failed. We could have easily had raw sewage running down the streets in Flomaton. Shaun and his department noticed the problem about 9 a.m. Tuesday. He and one of his employees drove to Texas to get the closest place he could find a replacement. Century resident Charlie Brown stepped up and allowed the town to use his sewer truck to haul the sewage to the town's treatment lagoon.
Moye said he decided make the trip to Texas because he was a salaried employee and it wouldn't cost the town overtime. He was back in Flomaton about 1 a.m. Wednesday with the new pump and on site at 5 a.m. to get it installed. We talked to him Wednesday morning and he looked exhausted but he and his crew had corrected the problem.
By the way, in Moye's 'spare' time he serves as a volunteer fireman in Century.
We're fortunate to have such dedicated people working for the town of Flomaton. Tell them thank you.
