WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. – More than 16,000 customers across Central Florida didn't have power as of 3 p.m. Tuesday. Most of them were Duke Energy customers.
However, Duke officials said they are still promising to restore electricity to all its customers by 11 p.m.
The Wildwood subdivision in Winter Springs was restored Tuesday afternoon after losing power for a second time Monday.
"Everything was running for a couple hours (Monday) and then the power went out again," Amanda Defilippo said, who is staying with her mother in Wildwood. "So it was all over again. Then you get worried if you got dropped down on the list because you got restored. What happens, what's the process then?"
Several neighbors in Wildwood said they had a hard time contacting Duke during both the first and second outages.
"I called them and told them I have cancer and I'm 72 years old and I can't do this anymore," Ilona Ivkovich said. "Oh my gosh. Three, four, five days. I can stand it but today was the 10th day."
Ivkovich didn't have to leave her doors open for ventilation while her power was out, two of her windows were accidentally shattered by a handyman who offered to help board up her windows. Battling cancer, she's now struggling to replace them on her own.
Ivkovich said she hopes Duke follows through on its promise "to do better." Yesterday, Duke admitted its reporting system was not working properly and apologized for missing its own deadline on Sunday at midnight.
"We've learned from that, there's a lot of things that we're going to do better in the future and we just apologize that maybe our communications didn't live up to the expectations they would have of this utility," Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said Monday.
Neighbors in Wildwood said they appreciated the apology but wanted action.
"It certainly shows an act of goodwill and it shows a real interest in people and wanting to do this better," resident Michael Humphreys said. "On the other hand, if there's investment made in making the communications better then it will be worth it."