What's in a Storm Lineman's Gear Bag: A 14-Day Hurricane Callout Loadout

May 10, 2026

What's in a Storm Lineman's Gear Bag: A 14-Day Hurricane Callout Loadout

The text comes in at 0347 on a Tuesday. "Mutual aid, Gulf Coast, report Thursday 0600, bring everything." You've got maybe nineteen hours of sleep left in the week, a wife who's seen this movie before, and a duffel that still smells like the last ice storm in Arkansas. The dispatcher won't tell you where you're sleeping, what you're eating, or when you're coming home. That's because nobody knows. What you can control is what fits in the bag.

Below is the actual loadout. Not the OSHA-poster version. The one that survives fourteen days of generator showers, FEMA cots, and 16-hour shifts in 94-degree heat while reconductoring three-phase primary through somebody's collapsed pecan tree.

The Bag Itself

Before anything goes in, the bag matters. A soft-sided 30-inch duffel with end pockets is the standard. Wheels are debatable — half the guys swear by them, half say wheels are for airports and you're not flying, you're throwing this thing into the back of a crew cab next to four other guys' bags and a cooler full of Gatorade.

What you don't want: a tactical-looking rucksack with a hundred MOLLE loops. You're not deploying to Helmand. You're going to Lake Charles. Keep it simple. One main compartment, two end pockets, one lid pocket for documents. If you can't find your underwear in the dark inside of thirty seconds, the bag is wrong.

Most road dogs run two bags total: the duffel for clothes and soft goods, and a separate tool tote or hard case for climbers, hooks, gloves, and anything that bites. Never mix the two. A leather glove that's been crammed against a clean t-shirt for three days is a leather glove that has opinions.

Lineman Gear Bag Essentials: The Clothing Layer

Fourteen days, no laundromat for at least the first eight. Plan accordingly.

**Seven FR shirts.** Long sleeve, button-up, vented if you can swing it. You're going to sweat through every one of them by lunch. The math is brutal: rinse in a hotel sink at night, hang in front of the AC unit, wear damp by 0530. Three rotations and they're permanent salt licks.
**Five FR pants.** Same rotation logic. Double-knee if you're working a lot of pad-mount. Standard cut if you're climbing.
**Ten pairs of socks.** This is non-negotiable. Wet boots, foot rot, blisters that become infections — socks are the closest thing to a luxury item you'll pack. Bring more than you think.
**Underwear, count plus four.** Trust the math. There will be a day you can't get back to the room and you change in a truck cab.
**One pair of off-duty pants and two t-shirts** for the rare evening you actually eat dinner sitting down somewhere with a roof. These also serve as your "fly home" outfit if you smell too feral for the airline.
**A hoodie.** Yes, even in August. Hotel AC at 2 a.m. after a soaking thunderstorm shift will put you in the ground without one.
**A rain jacket that actually breathes.** Cheap PVC rain gear in 90% humidity is a sauna suit. You'll wear it for the first twenty minutes and then work soaked anyway. Pay for the good one once, cry once.

A note on the t-shirts you sleep in or wear under FR: this is where road dogs end up flying their colors. Storm crews can read each other across a Cracker Barrel parking lot — a faded shirt from a 2017 Irma deployment says more than a business card. Identity travels with you when home is a Best Western for two weeks.

Boots, and the Boot Situation

One pair of primary work boots, broken in, waterproofed, and on your feet when you arrive. One pair of backup boots in the bag, also broken in. The backup is not optional. When your primaries get soaked in a flooded right-of-way on day three and won't dry in time for your 0600 shift, you'll thank yourself.

Throw in a pair of slides or cheap flip-flops. Hotel showers are not your friend. Neither are gas station bathrooms when you're traveling between staging yards. Your feet will be the most abused part of your body for two weeks straight. Treat them like equipment.

Boot dryer if you've got room. The little forced-air kind. Splitting a hotel room with another lineman means splitting one dryer, but a $40 unit pays for itself the first time it saves a shift.

The Climber and PPE Tote

Separate from the duffel. This is your business end.

**Hooks** with sharp gaffs. Pack a file. Storm work eats gaffs faster than normal work because you're climbing a lot of dead wood, palm, and whatever ornamental nightmare somebody planted under a primary line in 1994.
**Climbing belt and saddle.** Inspected. Tagged. If it's questionable, leave it home and grab a new one before you roll out.
**Rubber gloves and sleeves**, in date, with the bag and the protector gloves. Don't be the guy whose gloves expired three months ago and now you're sitting on the curb while the foreman finds you a loaner pair.
**Hard hat**, with your name on it and the stickers earned. Storm stickers are currency. Don't slap on ones you didn't earn — guys notice.
**Safety glasses, two pairs.** One clear, one tinted. You'll lose one. Probably day four.
**Hot stick** if you're expected to bring your own. Most crews provide, but check the callout sheet.
**Voltage tester, phasing sticks, grounds** — by crew protocol. If you're a journeyman riding out with a contractor, they'll usually have a yard-issued kit, but a personal tester in your bag has saved more than one lineman.

The "Stupid Things You'll Need" Pouch

This is the pouch separates the first-time stormer from the road dog. A gallon zip-top bag or a small organizer with:

Headlamp, plus a backup headlamp. Batteries for both.
A real flashlight, not a phone light.
Electrical tape, three rolls. You will trade these like cigarettes in a prison movie.
A multitool. Not a cheap one.
Permanent markers. You'll label everything from coolers to grounds to your own water bottle.
A small first aid kit with extra ibuprofen, anti-chafe stick, blister pads, and antibiotic ointment. Heat rash is real and it's stupid.
Sunscreen. The 50 SPF kind. You will laugh at this until day six in southern Louisiana.
Bug spray with DEET. Not the citronella nonsense. The kind that dissolves plastic if you spill it.
A roll of toilet paper. Trust.
Baby wipes. Two packs. These are showers when there are no showers.
Phone charger, plus a backup. Plus a car charger. Plus a power bank.
Earplugs. Hotel walls are thin and your roommate snores like a transformer fault.

Documents, Money, and the Boring Stuff

Stuff a folder in the lid pocket:

Driver's license, CDL if applicable, medical card
Lineman certification cards, first aid/CPR cards, any utility-specific quals
A printed copy of the callout sheet and reporting instructions
Insurance cards
Two hundred dollars in cash, small bills, somewhere not obvious

Why cash? Because on day two of a major hurricane response, half the gas stations are running on generator with no card readers. The Waffle House is open and the line is forty deep and they're cash only because the internet's been out since landfall.

Also pack a notebook and two pens. You'll write down pole numbers, transformer KVA, addresses, and the name of the guy from a Tennessee co-op who you'll see again on the next storm.

Food and Water Layer

You're not packing a pantry, but you're packing a buffer. The first 48 hours after landfall, food logistics are a mess. Pop-Tarts, jerky, protein bars, a jar of peanut butter, instant coffee packets, and electrolyte powder. Two gallons of water in the truck if you're driving in. Once the union hall or the staging yard gets its kitchen running, you'll eat fine — sometimes too fine, depending on the local barbecue situation — but you bridge the gap yourself.

Q&A: What Veterans Get Asked Every Storm

Do I really need fourteen days of clothes if there's laundry service?

There is no laundry service. There is "a guy said there might be a laundry truck coming Thursday." Pack like the laundry truck isn't real, because most of the time it isn't.

Can I just buy what I forgot down there?

The Walmart will be picked clean of batteries, socks, bug spray, and tarps within six hours of the staging yard going active. Whatever you forgot, you do without.

Should I pack a pillow?

Yes. Hotel pillows after fourteen nights will give you a neck injury that follows you home. A compressible camp pillow takes up nothing.

What about a cooler?

If you're driving in, yes. A 25-quart hard cooler rides in the truck for shift drinks and lunch. Soft cooler stays in the hotel room for whatever you scavenged from the staging yard. Ice is gold. Treat it accordingly.

Closing

The bag tells the truth about you. A new guy's bag is over-packed with novelty and under-packed with socks. A road dog's bag weighs less, smells worse, and has a strip of weathered electrical tape on the handle from a storm three years and four states ago. The faded patches, the boot scuffs, the t-shirt that's been through Harvey and Ida and Ian — none of that's decoration. It's a résumé.

Pack tight. Sleep when you can. The lights come back on because somebody decided to leave home in the middle of the night with a duffel bag and a set of hooks, and that somebody is probably reading this with a phone in one hand and a coffee in the other, waiting on the next text at 0347.