INDIANAPOLIS – A huge effort is still underway to restore power after storms knocked out electricity to tens of thousands of Hoosiers in the last week.
Some households in Indianapolis haven't had power since Thursday.
One of those Indianapolis residents still waiting for their power to be restored is Jodie Chandler. He’s been using a generator to keep comfortable. He tries not to run it during the day, but still needs to when he isn’t working.
"It came through Thursday and I had a tree branch come down, it hit the house, electricity immediately went out and has been out ever since," Chandler, an east side Indianapolis resident said.
While that tree that hit his house is cleaned up, Chandler still doesn't have power. It’s An inconvenience that's costing him money. He says it costs about 30 dollars a day to run his generator.
"I have a generator, I've been eating out, all the food went bad obviously,” Chandler said. “Just trying to stay cool and busy. "
Over on the northeast side of town, Chris Anderson is having a similar experience. Except he is also without water..
"My neighborhood is on a well so we have no water and no power,” Anderson said. “I took as much food as I could to my brother's house to put in his freezer and I've had to throw away other food that's in the refrigerator. It's just been miserable.”
Anderson is frustrated. He has been staying at his brothers in Fishers and showering at his local gym ever since his power has been out. He is going on day five as of Monday. He feels that AES should have been more proactive.
"Trim the trees so they don't fall on power lines,” Anderson said. “I don't see why else the power would be out besides all the trees falling on power lines. Just be more responsible. "
According to AES Indiana, there were around 81,000 customers who were affected by outages following severe storms on Thursday. On top of that, there were 2,600 plus reports of separate damage in the Indianapolis area. AES Indiana says they haven't experienced this for more than 10 years.
"We had to clear the trees off of downed power lines,” Kelly Young with AES Indiana said. “After the trees are cleaned up we are able to actually restore those lines and get those lines back up. We also had broken polls."
However, the customers we spoke with just wish AES would communicate with their customers more.
Both Anderson and Chandler said they have been reaching out to AES everyday to get a timeline on how long it will take for their power to be restored. Each time they weren’t able to get an answer. With AES asking to increase rates, the customers we spoke with feel AES should be more transparent.
"It leaves a lot of questions out there for you and they're not answering them,” Chandler said.
AES says they are doing everything they can to restore power as quickly as possible. They say that the rate increase will help prevent outages in the future.
RELATED | AES requests $17 rate hike starting in summer 2024 (wrtv.com)
"One of the number one challenges that we have in terms of outages is vegetation that is part of that rate review,” Young said. “We will also be able to update the equipment and just be able to update and modernize our grid and resources as well.
AES says they are prioritizing customers who haven't had power since Thursday and it should be back on by Monday. Once those customers are taken care of, crews will start working on restoring power to customers who lost power this weekend. To view AES’s outage map click here.
