Tampa power outage

[Anonymous]

Anyone else dealing with the extended power outage from Milton? We only prepared for three days which we are reaching now, we could last another couple days in an emergency but I just checked and they’re saying our area won’t get power back until Thursday which is another six days

We’re on well water and septic. Both are hardwired so I can’t plug them into a generator. We will run out of the tub water we had collected for handwashing in another 2 days. Still have some bottled drinking water, and have pool water for necessary flushes. However, besides the obvious running out of water to use for cooking and necessary washing, I’m getting very concerned about our septic system not being able to pump out and therefore back flowing into the house.

5 people living here including little kids so it already smells like a sewer here without being able to flush much but now we need to worry about septic issues for real

I thought they’d prioritize the people who live close in (we are in Hillsborough county) who don’t have running water or sewer service without the power on, but seems like they’re just prioritizing based on population density only in this county. Although the other more rural counties are also higher on the priority list than us no matter their density which I also can’t understand.

Just feeling frustrated. Honestly never expected that we could have a solid house in an area that’s not a flood zone nowhere close to the coast in a major county and still lose power for 1-2 weeks without even a direct hit to our immediate areas (we are quite far from where it came ashore and no evac recommended for us). There’s no major flooding here, just some small stuff that you can drive through, it’s mostly just that some trees came down on the power lines. We didn’t ever consider that we’d ever be on our own like this. Maybe the people who make decisions just don’t realize that some of us don’t have a functioning septic system without power, even if we get can get water from somewhere else.

Just a vent. Thanks for reading.

[Anonymous]

I’m so sorry, op. That is a really long wait for electricity. It looks like Pinellas and Hillsborough have the most outages, which probably explains the delay.

From the TECO site, it looks like they may be able to restore power for homes in those counties incrementally before Thursday, but no guarantee.

Could you all stay in a hotel or with family for a few days? It sounds like you could use the break to refresh, and it could help avoid putting more pressure on the septic system.

Hang in there!

[Anonymous]

Go to a hotel. My family in Sc didn’t get power for 9 days from Helene.

[Anonymous]

I hope you've gotten your power back by now.

I live 4 mi inland from where the eye came ashore and we got our power back Friday afternoon. Also, very little consequential damage in my condo complex, mostly branches, some trees, some roof tiles, a window or two. It's all mostly cleaned up already thanks to community volunteers.

It was quite the storm but not nearly as bad for me as I was expecting, in fact it was really cool going out in the eye for almost an hour as it passed over.

My extreme sympathies though to all those who are suffering and will have hurricane trauma to deal with for quite some time including rebuilding or not, insurance issues, flooding, businesses closing, schools closed, roads and infrastructure damaged, etc etc.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry OP. I'm in St Pete and a lot of people still don't have power here, too. This was a crazy storm.