Homeowner must cover cost of wind-damaged fixtures

As of Sunday, there were still about 125,000 customers without power across Ohio.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Electric companies on Sunday were down to the final customers without power because of last weekend’s fierce wind storm, although the cleanup was hardly over.

Some homes and businesses have to pay for repairs themselves, utilities said. Other residents hauled fallen trees to mulching sites while their neighbors restocked refrigerators thawed after eight days in the dark.

“It’s the first time I’ve clipped so many coupons,” said Dotty Young, who looked to replace more than $120 of food lost in her refrigerator and freezer.

About 125,000 customers in Ohio remained in the dark Sunday. Some utilities advised customers that the problem might be at the home, not on the power grid. Those repairs come from the homeowners’ pockets.

Though there’s nothing new about needing to do such repairs on their own, “it may be something many people are not aware of on a day-to-day basis,” Duke Energy spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said Sunday.

She said she didn’t have numbers for Duke customers facing the situation, but an American Electric Power spokesman said about 3,500 of their customers have seen the problem this week.

That fix, though, comes at a cost; Middletown-based Price Electric worker Bob Puckett said the average cost to fix meters or the wiring between meter boxes and the power lines is $600

Ellen Miller, who lives near southwest Ohio’s Carlisle, hired a contractor to repair her home’s lines, which were ripped off during the storm.

“This stuff happens. There’s nothing you can do about it,” Miller said. “That’s life; we’ll get by.”

It was that shrug-it-off-and-get-on-with-it attitude that wove through.

“It’s just one of those things, you deal with it and you let it go,” said Fred Davis, an Upper Arlington resident who took a fallen tree to a mulching site near his Columbus-area home. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Ohio Mulch manager Michael Norman said that before the storm, the compost yard almost was cleaned out, but now it’s close to full. The line into the compost site stretched long, as residents flocked to drop off branches.

“I’m actually happy we’ve had a week of good weather after the storm,” said Hilliard resident Mike O’Brian. “We’ve had good weather to clean up. I haven’t minded the exercise, just to do it.”

The state, meanwhile, issued a warning to residents to be on the lookout for potential fraud. Already, eight cases of insurance fraud are being investigated.

“We have found cases of some [contractors] causing additional damage in order to write up bigger estimates,” said Mary Jo Hudson, director of the Ohio Department of Insurance.

About 35,000 Duke customers in Ohio and Kentucky were still without power Sunday, with “99 percent” of those to be restored by midnight. Those still without power Monday would likely be people who weren’t aware they had to fix their meter boxes or wires first, Meinke said.

AEP Ohio had 29,576 customers without power Sunday and hoped to have all but about 7,000 restored by day’s end. AEP spokesman Jeff Rennie said the remaining customers still hadn’t fixed their broken meters or lines.

“It’s time-consuming — we appreciate our customers’ patience,” he said.

Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. reported Sunday on its Web site that about 12,700 customers were still without power. Most were in Springfield, Alliance and Salem and in Zelienope, Pa.

And Dayton Power & Light said on its Web site that about 49,000 customers were without power.