By MATT LINDSEY

POTSDAM — Two Potsdam Central School graduates are in Florida as linemen helping to restore power to millions of people following Hurricane Irma.

John Jones III, 28, and Robert Scott, 21, travelled down to Fort Lauderdale on Friday and stayed in a hotel during the storm, which hit this past weekend.

“There were 100 mile per hour winds and it was raining pretty hard,” Scott said of what he saw during the storm.

Jones said there were trees down all over where he was staying.

This is the first time either man had been deployed to an area devastated by a natural disaster.

“It wasn’t as bad as they thought — but we were on the outside edge of it,” Scott said.

Scott said there was some flooding where he was, but it wasn’t as bad as other areas depicted on the news.

Jones and Scott will do transmission line work on 500 Kv power lines trying to restore power to millions.

“We are getting out equipment and headed out,” Jones said. He was not sure where he would be deployed, but thought maybe on the west coast which was hit harder by the storm.

Jones expected to be in Florida for a month or two working on fixing the power lines.

Scott and Jones work for Irby Construction, based in Jackson, Miss., which is a sub-contractor for Florida Power and Light Company.

Jones is the son of John Jones and Amy Shonyo. Scott is the son of Rob and Sheila Scott.