LAKELAND, Fla. — Two days after Hurricane Ian swept by, causing massive devastation, thousands of people in Polk County are still without power.
“It’s kind of rough, it’s kind of rough. You know, we’re trying to make it the best we can,” said Luther McDaniels, who lives in Lakeland Estates with his wife, Wanda.
The McDaniels have been living in Lakeland for a year. They moved here from New Jersey and they never thought they would experience a historic hurricane that would devastate much of the Tampa Bay area, leaving them and their neighbors without power.
“There’s a lot of elderly here that’s beyond 65 that need their refrigerator. They need their sources. They need their food, and where can they put their food if there’s no electricity? And they have to throw their food out. So, where they got to go to eat? They can’t afford to go out to eat,” said Wanda McDaniels.
Right now, they are using a generator to power their refrigerator, thanks to a neighbor, a testament to the collective nature of people after a natural disaster.
“Thank God we have people inside the village here, that everybody pulled together because, you know, we all stuck together and helped one another. So, we’re trying to survive the best way we can until this is over with,” said Luther.
RELATED: Ian: Power outage numbers, maps
Lakeland Electric told ABC Action News that about 23,000 people are currently without power in the Lakeland area, and they have already restored power for about 42,000 people as they repair and replace powerlines that are disfigured and the others that were downed by hurricane-force winds.
I asked a representative from Lakeland Electric, who was in the field with crews, what the process of getting the power back on was after a hurricane of this magnitude. Here’s her response:
“So, the first thing we do is we go back to the source. We make sure our power generators are working and then we work out from there to substations, to distribution lines, to transmission lines. And then we go to hospitals, fire departments, police departments, shelters, and nursing homes making sure they have power. Once they do, we’ll go to the largest amount of customers that we can get on at once,” said Cathryn Lacy with Lakeland Electric.
While they work on restoring power, they remind people to never operate a generator inside of their homes due to the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning. On Friday, they said they expect to restore power to all of their residents within the next three to four days.