Dozens of utility workers from Iowa are now in Ohio, helping restore electricity to thousands of homes and businesses in areas where the remnants of Hurricane Helene caused widespread damage over the weekend.

Geoff Greenwood, a spokesman for MidAmerican Energy, says they sent about 70 line workers and support crews to Cincinnati after staging with their big bucket trucks in Des Moines and Davenport on Friday night.

“They got to the Cincinnati area on Saturday night and they got to work. They’ve been working very long days, on the average, about 16-hour days,” Greenwood says. “They’ve made a lot of progress, and these are largely residential areas. It’s the same type of work that they would do here, but obviously the magnitude is much greater right now because of the need.”

There are areas of the south and southeastern U.S. that were much harder hit by the storm’s remnants than Ohio, and Greenwood says the Iowa crews that are now in the Cincinnati metro are expecting to get another assignment very soon.

“Right now in the U.S., there are about a million customers still out in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, so we’re in a bit of a holding pattern,” Greenwood says. “Our crews will continue working in the Cincinnati area throughout the day, but it’s likely that they will get a request to go farther east.”

It’s still unclear where the Iowa crews will be heading next to lend a hand.

“We are in discussions right now with Duke Energy, which serves customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee,” he says, “and really a lot of these areas that they serve were hit by this hurricane, or at least by the remnants of the hurricane.”

At the peak, about 140,000 Cincinnati area customers were without power, and by 9 AM on Monday, only 3,000 or so remained offline, so the Iowa crews should be wrapping up there very soon. While Ohio is a long way from the ocean, the former hurricane still caused severe damage.

“Even though the winds went to under hurricane strength, they were still very, very strong,” Greenwood says. “When you’re talking about sustained winds of 50 to 70 miles per hour, it really hits overhead lines, hits trees. It just does all the damage that we know from first-hand experience when we had the derecho here several years ago.”

Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy serves 820,000 electric customers in Iowa, Illinois and South Dakota, and 797,000 natural gas customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Ohio Task Force 1 has been reassigned to North Carolina to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

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As previously reported by News Center 7, OH-TF1 was activated on Sept. 24 to mobilize as a Type I team to support FEMA Region 4 and the state of Florida.

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“Ohio Task Force 1 has completed assigned missions in and around Pasco County, Florida, and has been reassigned to North Carolina,” the team wrote on social media. “They expect to start working around noon (Monday).”

>>PHOTOS: Ohio Task Force 1 assisting after Hurricane Helene

The team deployed 82 members skilled in various aspects of search and rescue operations, including water rescue and K-9.

Their specific determination in North Carolina has not yet been determined.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — Playing games with her children and husband, Danielle Winters knows firsthand how difficult it can be to afford child care.

“We had two children in child care full time and it costs about as much or more as our mortgage,” said Danielle Winters.   

As a mother of two, she tells me, along with paying for child care, another obstacle is finding quality child care. 

“Finding like either a daycare center or a school that aligns with your priorities and what you want for your family and for your child’s education. And oftentimes there are waitlists or it’s just hard to get in places because there aren’t enough spots for children. Combined with the cost to because you’re going to have to pay for that because it’s really expensive,” said Winters. 

According to the century foundation, the prices for child care in Ohio have increased 25% since 2019 and the average price for an infant in a center is over $12,000 a year. A researcher from The Century Foundation, Julie Kashen says rising child care costs are because of the lack of government attention and funding.

“We should be treating it like a public good, like all of those other programs and services that we all benefit from because we all benefit from child care and early learning. It helps our children grow, it helps our parents work. It matters to everyone. But because we haven’t done that as a country, what that means is that paying for it is on the backs of parents,” said the Director of Women’s Economic Justice for The Century Foundation, Julie Kashen. 

Winters only has one child in child care at the moment and she tells me it’s a little bit more manageable to afford it. But she knows that’s not the case for a lot of mothers. She says a lot of mothers will have to be caregivers and put their careers on hold because they can’t afford child care. 

“I know several women who have had to put child care ahead of their career, and it they’ve either had to step away from their career during these years or they haven’t been able to be as active and maybe pursue the type of career they’d want to,” said Winters.