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might happen if the massive barges hit bridge piers. One did, but did not appear to damage the Fort Henry Bridge significantly. 

Once the threat became clear, towboat crews in the area were asked to stop the barges. According to the Coast Guard, towboats accomplished that task in at least four instances. Other runaway barges apparently went aground. 

Witnesses in Wheeling saw an example of the work done by an AEP towboat’s crew. The crew put their boat in the path of a runaway barge, then expertly nudged it and allowed the swift current to carry it alongside a barge attached to the boat, where it was secured. Towboat crew members made the difficult, dan- gerous task look easy, reported witnesses. 

It wasn’t, of course. It required a great amount of skill and at least some courage. Towboat crews who stopped the runaways deserve high praise for their work. 

AEP CHAIRMAN’S LIFE SAVING AWARD — AEP unveiled the Chairman’s Life Saving Award in 2004. The award recognizes the extraordinary efforts of AEP employees to help people in need. Chairman Mike Morris presented awards to Public Ser- vice Company of Oklahoma employees Lee Ann Myers and Frank Phillips and AEP Ohio employee Steve Frisch. 

Myers, a stores attendant in Chickasha, Okla., helped a woman being chased by a gun-wielding man. Myers ignored the man’s threats, drove the woman to safety and used her cell phone to call police. The man was arrested a short while later. 

Phillips, community affairs manager based in McAlester, Okla., alerted his neighbors and called 911 late one night after he noticed that a home in his neigh- borhood was filled with smoke. No one was home in the burning house, which was destroyed, but he was able to rouse other neighbors. Some of the other homes sustained heat damage. 

Frisch, a distribution line coordinator in Bucyrus, Ohio, rescued a toddler who was wandering in the middle of a busy street in Daytona, Fla. Frisch, who was assisting with power restoration after a hurricane, visited homes in the neighbor- hood until he found the boy’s family. 

Morris said the Chairman’s Life Saving Award is for “those among us who stand taller than the rest of us.… We seem to attract people who are interested in public service. We give of ourselves and we give ourselves freely.” 

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Southwestern Electric Power Com- pany, organized in 1912, is headquar- tered in Shreveport, La., and encom- passes the AEP service territories in Louisiana, Arkansas and the portion of Texas that participates in the South- west Power Pool. 

Chief industries served include natural gas and oil production, petro- leum refining, pulp and paper manu- facturing, chemicals, food processing and metal refining. 

Southwestern Electric Power has approximately 442,000 customers. 

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AEP Texas, headquartered in Corpus Christi, serves the distribution consum- ers of AEP’s two electric utility operat- ing companies in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas region – AEP Texas Central Company, organized in 1916, and AEP Texas North Company, organized in 1925. 

Major industries served include oil and gas extraction, food processing, apparel, tourism, metal refining, chemical and petroleum refining, plastics machinery equipment, and several military installations and correctional facilities. 

AEP Texas has approximately 850,000 end-use customers. 

