TAMPA, Fla. — A live wire went down in a Tampa subdivision during Hurricane Milton, leading to a car crash and leaving neighbors on edge for more than a week.
Neighbors told ABC Action News they had to take charge to protect others from potential danger.
Electrical linemen from another state finally showed up on Travis Boulevard on Friday, Oct. 18, nine days after a power line was downed by Hurricane Milton.
“I think they're overwhelmed. They were very overwhelmed in the whole situation,” George Ros said.
Not only was power finally being restored to several homes, but neighbors were also relieved that a downed power line they believed was still energized was being moved from the sidewalk.
Neighbors start "Safety Patrol"
Neighbor Bishop Padilla said he was concerned it could have become a tragedy “at any second.”
George Ros, Bishop Padilla, and Joe Gibbons, Jr. formed a safety patrol for their street after the line went down.
“It broke that night on Wednesday evening, and it went off twice after that. So three times that thing has gone off,” Gibbons said.
George’s son ran over the wire while pulling into his dad’s driveway with his Jeep the day after the hurricane.
“We saw the sparks coming up from under them. Then we saw the sparks coming all the way up the wire,” Ros said.
All three men heard the noise when the vehicle hit the wire.
“I was about 20 feet away from him when I thought I was going to lose my son,” Ros said.
George’s son threw his Jeep in reverse and was struck by an oncoming car.
A Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputy responded.
“Then we assumed it was dead then because the sheriff's department was out here, the fire department, they called it in, but it was still live two days later after that."
Bishop heard it then, too.
“It was like a big ‘zzzzzz’ sound, like an electrical sound,” Padilla said.
The deputy left yellow tape so neighbors could mark off the live wire.
“I wrapped it around the mailbox. Then the pole. Then I realized that wasn’t good enough, so I wrapped it around the bushes,” Ros said.
TECO called daily
Padilla said his wife repeatedly called the power company.
“All nine days, every day,” he said. “She says live wire down.”
“We kind of got fed up after a while, like we weren't being heard,” Bishop said.
At one point, the neighbors tried to flag down electrical linemen staying in a nearby Airbnb.
‘Me and him come out of the house in boxers. We could hear it. We came out at the same time. Oh, wait. It's right here,” Padilla said.
But they had no luck getting anyone to respond to their call.
So they took turns making sure nobody else ran into the downed line.
“We've been kind of monitoring it best we could as a neighborhood, watching it. We see people on the sidewalk, one of us is watching to get them off,” Ros said.
“Every morning, like clockwork, we have joggers and walkers. Every morning,” Padilla said. “I was worried about them big time. Because you can't see anything. It's dark here.”
“Just last night, I was blowing some leaves off the road onto the grass, and a kid’s on a little scooter, little child, about seven years old,” Ros said.
600,000 of 840,000 customers lost power
We asked a TECO spokesperson why no one responded sooner.
She said Hurricane Milton was the worst outage event in the utility’s history, with 600,000 of 840,000 customers losing power.
Even with 6,000 visiting linemen, there were still challenges getting quickly to every call, the spokesperson said.
The Travis Boulevard safety patrol is glad the lineman finally put them out of business.
However, they believe TECO should find a better way of dealing with live wires in future storms.
“At least cap it off or do something so it can be safe and nobody can get hurt,” Padilla said.