WUNC News; Duke Power Response

eighty one year old tom jones peers out the front door of his wes durham home as he's done for the past seven days looking for the duke power utility trucks this time he's not disappointed he wasted district manager for alexander and inviting him to meet his wife juanita who's trying to write all her christmas cards before it gets dark early eighties happy juanita need in her pink track suit has been heating water in front of the fire to dave tom is a little more rumpled begets faced by then and know when he came back he had a they say they were they wanted to give me money all about was the joneses are trying to keep a sense of humor but they're running out of patience out of the dick powell is responding well yeah now that you would see a lot of trees but what good they did a very good standing yeah so well they follow a candidate won each is radio ran out of batteries a few days ago and since then they've had no information about when power might be restored

alexander is quick to explain the magnitude of the crisis the hardest hit area in this were storm whatever inner history happen to be in in the triangle and other bills even the nicest they would get ill after not having a worn out yesterday alexander says he'll try to get the couple's lights on today but first accrue cross the street plus use chain saws to wrestle with a three that's untangle power lines felled then apply the left that say your fatty are painted landscapes also marked never has been online for fifty years he says he understands customers frustrations especially when crews have to leave the neighborhood have finished fired trees to be cut back further away from power lines the damage would not have been so bad you go in this city

or this you know that they're true bambi in there and they only give us is a whole little ice a company and that one were fargo's a pseudonym it's a ship through has been one of the hardest hit areas and state and city leaders have publicly criticized duke powers response time never wishes his public relations department to do a better job explaining why some areas are back up sooner than others i mean you know americans are distressed and say in poorer areas than last fenway no slam home value for less voice wealthiest areas in areas in addition to scrutiny about response time the public is also eager to prevent this kind of outage from happening again one suggestion has been to bury power lines so trees can fall on them but tumble a lock a line worker for twenty four years says it's easier

said than done as lives outside of time or when you get to the nude going on they ran as an area man who thought the huge expanse burying the lines would cost fifteen billion dollars according to undue power study a decade ago and that would be paid by utility customers play lock says it's also harder to repair barry bonds went on when customers damage that they always think around the home doing dances off when shrubbery a naked into it that you don't completely get through it off in a few weeks will be out there repairing it and we see what old suv biggest it utility workers like tumble a lot and mark leverett want customers to understand that there are no easy answers to why power was out for so long or how to stop this from happening again but the questions have just begun for the power companies who will appear in from the utilities commission on monday a separate panel

convened by governor easley will also review the storm response but most porn to do power maybe the court of public opinion dysart manager fred alexander says meaning the joneses showed how important it is to reach out to the community he's happy to report their lights came back on three pm on thursday i'm julie donley in durham