FRESNO, Calif. (FOX26) — Nearly a month after a garbage truck tore down power equipment at a northwest Fresno apartment complex, PG&E crews restored power to tenants.
The impact ripped power panels off the wall, leaving residents without electricity and water.
“I heard a loud boom, so I was like, ‘Okay take out the trash, check what that was,’ and I just seen wires hanging on the ground,” Brittany Moody, a tenant, said.
With triple-digit heat in Fresno, tenants said the prolonged outage forced many to leave their apartments and pay for hotels or stay with family.
“It’s been really really hot and warm, and we have asthma, so that really affects us as far as like the heat so sitting outside all day checking in and out of hotels It’s very very irritating,” Choo Sanders, another tenant, said.
Moody said she and her family left expecting the disruption would be shorter.
“We were under the impression that we would have to be gone for two weeks,” she said. “I went to my mother’s house with my boyfriend my dog my cat and my son and we have been there ever since.”
Tenants also described financial losses tied to the outage.
“A few grand worth of medication with down the drain because it has to be refrigerated and kept at a cool temperature,” Moody said.
Sanders said the costs of being displaced added up quickly.
“Paying for hotels, paying for food, door dash, gas, is really pricey. We alone spent almost $700 on the hotels the first week and that came directly out of our pockets,” Sanders said.
Tenants said they called PG&E daily seeking updates, but were told the situation involved repairs and code requirements tied to the property.
PG&E spokesperson Paul Moreno said power could not be restored until the panels met code requirements, and that the heat was causing disruptions.
“Unfortunately we have heat-related power outages. We also have the Gann Fire, so a lot of our resources in the region are working on that,” Moreno said. “PG&E can restore power to the four tenant units and is working with the landlord and the tenants to do that today.”
Less than an hour later, PG&E crews arrived at the complex and tenants said electricity was coming back on, allowing air conditioning to run again.
“Can’t wait to get back home. Yeah, I’m excited to sleep in my own bed. I’m excited to bring my family home, my animals and be in our space,” Moody said.
Even with power returning, tenants said they were still dealing with the impact of the long outage.
“It shouldn’t have gone this far. It shouldn’t have took this long. We’re people and we deserve to be treated as such. And anyone without power should be considered an emergency,” Sanders said.
Tenants said they were still without water because the well serving the property runs on electricity, and some equipment still needs to be modified before water service can be fully restored.