Mt. Pleasant Municipal Utilites aims to continue serving the community amid the COVID-19 pandemic

MT. PLEASANT - Though they've made a couple changes, the Mt. Pleasant Municipal Utilities wants the residents of the city to know they're 'business as usual,” even through the coronavirus pandemic.

Jack Hedgecock, general manager of Mt. Pleasant Municipal Utilities, said the company began monitoring the virus outbreak early and developed a health crisis response operating procedure, breaking down threat levels in a tiered system. As the situation escalates, the company will adhere to heightened procedures and policies to continue to meet the needs of their customers.

Some temporary policies the company has taken include closing all non essential traffic into their facilities as well as limiting contact with the public as much as possible. The company is encouraging people to pay by debit or credit card over the phone, or with a check through the mail. Those who need to drop off cash can also still do so at their office, but will not receive change. Any money that goes over the bill amount will be credited to the customer and applied to their next bill.

'We're trying to protect our staff and customers. We don't want to expose them or us,” Hedgecock explained.

Even as the company limits customer contact, Hedgecock added the company will still come and help with any emergencies. Those who are building new structures can also still sign up and get services installed.

Internally, the company has split their crew to have less people in their facilities and working at any one time to ensure their 32-person crew is not entirely out if one person were to contract the virus. Workers are also provided additional protective equipment and encouraged to stay home if feeling unwell.

'The good part is it's seamless for customers … We're still trenching and building poles and all the things we were doing before the outbreak. We're just doing them a little differently,” Randy Neff, accounting supervisor, said. The company is moving forward with capital projects and has new transmission lines and a substation that will be completed in the near future.

The utility company also has plans for any situation that may incapacitate their ability to serve the community.

'The good news is we're in a very good mutual aid program,” Hedgecock said. As a member of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, which works with 540 cities and municipal utilities across the state, Mt. Pleasant can draw on the assistance of neighboring companies in any emergency circumstance.

'We're doing our best to plan ahead and make sure we don't have an interruption in service. We have critical infrastructure and everyone needs their water and electricity,” Hedgecock added.

The general manager also dispelled any rumors that water quality has gone down since the beginning of the outbreak.

'We're good on supplies. We're doing everything that we usually do to keep the water safe. Things are safe and we intend to keep it that way,” he added.

Moving forward, Hedgecock said the company intends to be there for companies. In mid-March, Mt. Pleasant Municipal Utilities enacted temporary policy changes aimed at 'reducing stress on customers,” which included suspending penalties and not issuing any 24 hour disconnect notices.

'We want to work with customers and we're continuing to understand their needs, and we really do appreciate customers understanding the changes and the support that we've gotten,” Hedgecock said.