ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Ongoing power outages have become the reality for residents in one St. Augustine neighborhood, their most recent one lasting up to 16 hours.
Homeowners now want answers as to why this keeps happening.
The 12 residents who live there, some with health concerns, are heavily impacted when the power goes out in their close-knit neighborhood on North Francis Road.
Ken, Linda and Alan are all pleading for help after dealing with ongoing power outages since May 2024.
"It’s enough, it’s enough we’ve been putting up with this for too long. They need to just fix it; it can’t be that hard, it just can't be," said Ken Cuyler, "the normal routine for us here’s the routine power goes out make the call two or three hours maybe four at the most it’s back on."
In the last couple of weeks, things have taken a turn for the worse.
"It’s worse," said Cuyler, "It’s gotten way worse. Now it goes out if it just rains."
On Saturday, they had no power for eight hours. Sunday there was no power for 16 hours when temperatures outside felt like triple digits.
First Coast News arrived around 4:30 p.m. Monday afternoon to meet with these residents and the power was out again.
Cuyler uses the power restoration update texts from Florida Power & Light Company to estimate when the power will be back on. As of 7:30 p.m., Cuyler informed First Coast News his power was restored.
First Coast News reached out to FPL regarding the neighborhood outages and received this statement:
"We are aware of reliability concerns from some of our customers in St. Augustine. We are actively working to address vegetation that has been interfering with our power lines and interrupting service. We understand how important it is for our customers to have reliable electricity and apologize for the inconvenience."
FPL customers can report outages on its website, mobile app or by calling 800-4-OUTAGE.