After Hermine: Portraits in powerlessness

John Hettinger can see the street light on at the front of his mobile home park less than half a mile outside the city limits.

But he can’t see through the pre-dawn darkness inside his own home to get his three sons ready for school.

His neighborhood, off Woodville Highway, is without power for the seventh day in the aftermath of Hurricane Hermine. (Hettinger reported Tallahassee Democrat that power was restored to the park Wednesday evening.)

Things are hot. There are people with medical conditions who have nowhere to go.

Calls from Hettinger and 47 other tenants in the Twin Lake mobile home park to city of Tallahassee have gone largely unanswered. Frustration is starting to mount.

Each time they call in the outages, they are getting little confirmation their cries for help are being recorded.

But Hettinger said what is really disheartening is what he’s being told: Customers within the city limits are getting priority.

“An operator said they’ll be restoring the city customers and then ‘outside the circle’ customers would be next,” he said. “That doesn’t make sense to me because we don’t really have a choice to buy our power from the city even though we don’t vote for the mayor. We’re just outside the city limits.”

Neighbors have come together. On Friday they cleared their own trees, cutting away big limbs from potentially live wires to get out of the neighborhood and make way for crews to repair the lines.

People passed generators around. Hettinger stood in line for four hours at Harbor Freight to get one. Hungry Howie's pizza has become a staple.

At least nine of Hettinger’s tenants have come to him trying to figure out how pay rent this month.

Hettinger, who endured Super Storm Sandy, moved from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and bought the mobile home park in 2014. He manages the 48 properties and lives there with his three autistic sons, Jason, Shawn and John-Michael.

He’s a single dad. The past week has been trying.

Shawn and John-Michael didn't go to school at Gretchen Everhart Wednesday because they hadn’t had a hot shower. They have become agitated with their daily routines thrown out of sync.

Hettinger says John-Michael is having the hardest time with the power outage. He is mostly non-verbal and requires a computer with adaptive equipment and communication boards to express himself.

It’s been almost too much.

But his tenants, who he considers his family, have stepped forward in a big way.

“Over the last couple days, especially these last few days, I’ve been seriously considering selling the park and moving,” Hettinger said. “I felt like things would be a little different when a hurricane came through. I’ve been a little on the depressed side. I didn’t realize that we didn’t matter. It’s a horrible thing to say, but I know my tenants felt that too and I think that’s why they were so helpful.”

By Wednesday, the Twin Lakes park had seen one electric truck. That afternoon crews were working on getting the Woodville substation back online, just a mile down the road, city officials said.

Billy-Jack Foley lives in the park. He has called to report the power outage four times a day since Friday.

Sometimes he is on the phone with a person within minutes. Other times,it take more than four hours. It just depends on when he calls. Sometimes the person who picks up the phone tells him this is the first they are hearing power in the community is out.

Nothing is giving him much hope.

“Our city light department needs to be better prepared to answer our questions when we call instead of giving us all the same run around every day,” Foley said.

City Spokeswoman Alison Faris said if customers fear a ticket has not been created for their outage it may just be because crews haven’t yet been dispatched to their area.

"Crews are continually being assigned to new locations as work is completed and power restored to an area," she said. "While a crew may not have been immediately dispatched, customers can be sure that it's in the cue and will be resolved as quickly as possible."

Such explanations are not enough, Hettinger said.

“I have 48 families in here that have nothing and haven’t had anything for six straight days.”

Just two houses left

Diesel’s tail can’t stop wagging, despite sitting in a sweltering house in Arbor Hill for more than 60 hours.

But his owner, Alexis Bell, is more worried about him and her two other dogs, Duke and Chief, than she is about herself.

Bell, a law enforcement dispatcher, weathered Hermine alone with her canine companions. The storm fell on her day off. The power went out around 10:30 p.m. Thursday.

Everything seemed fine when the lights flicked back on Saturday and she went to work with the air conditioner blasting. She was happy. The dogs were fine.

She returned Sunday to stifling humidity, a hot house and three dogs to worry about. Her power has remained off since then.

“I wanted to cry. I wanted to break down and cry,” Bell said Wednesday after painting her fingernails with a fresh coat of red polish to keep herself busy.

“Not only was it just completely terrifying but you get your hopes up and you're like, ‘OK we can recover from this. Everything is going to be OK,’” she explained. “And then everything crashes around you.”

Her neighbors have power. The streets around her have power. But Bell sits in the dark. Waiting.

She has been in contact with city officials to get a status update. She is being told restoring her lights, and those of a neighbor also in dark, isn’t a priority because she is a “onesie, twosie,” — city slang for scattered power outages.

“If my entire neighborhood was out like after the storm hit, yes, they would come out,” Bell said. “But because it was just me, no not a priority.”

She remains in good spirits. Neighbors offer water and the chill of the air conditioner. Bell said she wouldn’t have been able to get out of her neighborhood if someone down the street hadn’t cleared the road of a tree Friday.

She keeps her dogs cool rubbing them with a cool washcloth. They lay on the tile floor panting.

“You can complain all day that it's hot, it’s uncomfortable, my groceries are ruined that’s fine. But my dogs and my poor little fish,” she said. “They’re so uncomfortable. It humbles you. It’s very frustrating. It does frustrate you.”

‘Frustrating beyond a measurable level’

Corralling four kids — ages 2, 9, 12, and 13 — in Hermine’s aftermath has been challenging for Alencia Salters.

Up until 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, she sat at her Idaho Street home wondering when the lights were going to come back on.

The school-aged kids went to school Wednesday after taking baths in water heated on the propane stove.

She’d already thrown out $300 in food and was running out of books and movies to keep the children entertained. She’d prepared well to be there alone with them while her husband was out in California for Army training.

She’d bought a propane stove and charcoal for her grill. She had non-perishable food. But she, like most of the city, didn’t think to prepare for more than a few days without electricity.

“We had ice, we had batteries I had a small fan,” Salters said as her air conditioner finally hummed. “But still, it’s not enough. We were down for six days.”

Across the street, the All in One Supermarket on Alabama Street had power. A tree lay across the power line on her end of the street until Tuesday night.

Wednesday as her son Daxton played outside, Salters said she was fine roughing it for a few days. But her experience with the city’s call center, which has run around the clock fielding customer’s problems, was concerning.

Salters, who has worked in customer service all her life, phoned twice a day. But like many others reported, she said she was told her calls for service had not been recorded.

Being hung up on was the final straw.

“They didn’t record any of our calls,” she said. “One of the workers hung up on me when I started asking her more questions. To find out last night that it’s not even being recorded. That’s frustrating beyond a measurable level.”

City officials could not confirm Salters was hung up on, but Mayor Andrew Gillum in a Q&A with the Tallahassee Democrat acknowledged the call center can be a frustrating experience.

He apologized for the delays and poor communication on the customer service line, which was being manned by about 20 people on Wednesday.

“Even though the numbers of the powerless are decreasing, the utilities call center is experiencing higher call volume,” Gillum said, suggesting customers use social media or the city’s utilities app. “I’m willing to bet you that every one of those 4,000 are calling trying to figure out what’s going on because they’re getting to the end of their ropes and they want answers.”

Salters said there is no reason to not have calls for service logged, even with the high volume.

“I’ve worked in customer service my entire life. You’re supposed to take down every call, even if you have to scribble down a note and then go back and do it,” she said. “They’re overwhelmed. I understand that. But everyone out here is overwhelmed.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.