ST. CLOUD, Fla. – The air conditioners are humming again. Refrigerators are cold. And after nearly a week of uncertainty, residents say every home at the St. Cloud Mobile Home Community finally has electricity again.
But for the people who spent days trying to escape the summer heat, protect medications and replace spoiled food, getting the lights back on has not erased what the outage cost them.
“It was stressful, very depressing,” resident Alfredo Sanchez said. “There was a lot of tension, the heat. You know, it was rough.”
Sanchez has lived in the community for six years. When News 6 returned Monday, five homes were still without electricity.
Sanchez said those remaining homes finally had their power restored late Tuesday night.
“We had the city inspector here yesterday,” Sanchez said Wednesday. “The electrician guy got here yesterday around 6:30, 7:00 at night to repair the damage with the power. He was done by 9:30. The five other people has power now.”
For those residents, the outage stretched from Wednesday until late Tuesday — nearly an entire week.
Sleeping in the car to escape the heat
For Sanchez, one of the hardest parts was simply trying to stay cool.
With temperatures climbing and no air conditioning inside his home, he said there were nights when he slept in his car so he could use its A/C.
“The hot weather,” Sanchez said when asked about the most difficult part. “The house being hot.”
He also had to worry about his insulin.
By Wednesday morning, Sanchez said he had been able to replace the medication. But another loss remains harder to recover from.
“I’m not behind on my medication now,” he said. “I’m behind on my groceries because I lost basically a $250 grocery I done.”
Fish, snacks and food he relied on for his everyday meals were among the items he said had to be thrown away.
Now, simple things inside his home feel different.
“The AC, able to open my refrigerator, get a drink, prepare a meal for myself that’s not spoiled,” Sanchez said when asked what he appreciated most after getting electricity back.
Neighbors helping neighbors
As the outage continued, Sanchez said some residents began helping one another get through it.
One neighbor relied on a generator. Sanchez said it cost about $23 each day to keep it fueled.
“I felt bad for the guy because he was putting, like, half of the money in the middle of the night,” Sanchez said. “He was staying with no gas. I personally filled it up for him myself with my own money.”
Sanchez described the community under normal circumstances as a place where neighbors spend time outside together, grill and share what they have.
“When it’s alive we all be outside, we be talking to one another,” he said. “We grill, we share it with one another.”
During the outage, he described a completely different scene.
“This was like a ghost town,” Sanchez said.
He described neighbors as “cranky, aggravated, frustrated, depressed” as the outage stretched on for days.
Medical equipment added another concern
Resident Oscar Bermudez, who has lived in the community for nearly three years, also spent several days without electricity.
Bermudez said his power returned Saturday, about three days after the outage began.
He is diabetic and also has sleep apnea, which requires him to use an electrically powered machine while sleeping.
“Luckily I have a small little generator, and I was able to sleep with that the first two nights,” Bermudez said.
If the outage had continued, he said he was considering taking an air mattress to the community center so he would have somewhere with electricity to sleep.
When his power finally came back, Bermudez returned home to check his appliances and refrigerator.
“The food in my fridge was already thawed out,” he said. “I had to throw a lot of that out.”
Residents say communication became another frustration
With the power now restored, both men say their attention has shifted from when the electricity would return to how the outage was handled.
Sanchez said he became frustrated as residents waited for repairs and repeatedly heard that delays were pushing the timeline back.
“I felt cornered because they was telling us a day, then they gave us another excuse,” Sanchez said. “Transportation delay, the mail delay, the delivery delay. Every day was a different excuse.”
When asked what residents should have been offered while they waited, Sanchez answered simply:
“Brought us water, food, got us shelter.”
He said he ultimately felt residents were forced to fend for themselves.
“I didn’t have no power, they didn’t help me find power,” Sanchez said. “I had no grocery, they didn’t help me to get grocery. I had no water, they didn’t offer water. So I had to go out there and try to survive on my own.”
Bermudez also said he wanted more communication from management.
“To be more responsive, to be there for the people,” he said.
He said he remained “kind of mad” even after getting his own electricity back.
Management office directs residents elsewhere
When News 6 returned to the community Wednesday, management was not working from the property’s office.
Instead, a sign posted on the office door directed residents to two phone numbers to reach management while staff worked from another property.
Residents told News 6 their concerns now extend beyond whether the electricity works.
Sanchez said he wants management to take responsibility for what happened and help residents who lost food or incurred other expenses during the outage.
“Accept responsibility for the problem that happened in the community,” Sanchez said, “and try to help people here that are really in need right now with food and drink, because everybody lost their food.”
Sanchez said that financial loss is particularly difficult for some residents who are waiting for their next checks before they can replenish what spoiled.
“I’m very angry about it and upset,” he said.
Bermudez said he has not been told whether residents will receive any reimbursement for what they lost.
He also worries the restoration may not be the end of the community’s electrical problems.
“Temporary fix that I know of because it’s gonna happen again,” Bermudez said.
He and Sanchez both told News 6 they have experienced electrical issues in the community before.
Power restored, but not everything feels fixed
For Sanchez, there is still a literal reminder of that concern near his home.
He installed a light outside to illuminate the area at night and help keep neighbors safe when it gets dark.
Sanchez says that light stopped working after the outage.
Even though electricity has now returned to every home in the community, he says the light still will not turn on.
It is a small problem compared with days without air conditioning, refrigeration or reliable electricity.
But for Sanchez, it represents a larger concern.
The outage may be over.
He does not believe everything here is back to normal.
“They just need to try to communicate more with the community,” Sanchez said. “And stop leaving us behind.”