DALLAS, Texas — It's been a rough past five days for Daniel Lopez and his family in Dallas. They've been trying to beat the heat inside their home.
"Right now it's muggy, right? So the way it feels outside, it feels the same inside the house," Daniel Lopez said.
Lopez shared photographs showing exactly what his family did to navigate in the dark at home. They lost power last Tuesday when storms rolled through their Dallas neighborhood. Since then, they have not been able to cook, watch television or use the basic electronics.
Trees in the alley along High Bluff Drive knocked down power lines, Lopez said. Although the trees have been cut down and removed away from the electrical lines, the lines still needed repair. He used his phone to reach out to Oncor.
"They keep telling us they are going to fix it, but by Thursday they had not fixed it. It's Sunday, almost Monday, already almost six days without power," said Lopez. "It's frustrating."
Oncor in a statement to WFAA acknowledged customers' frustrations with the days-long outage. Company officials also said there was an issue with Oncor's notification system and they were working to fix it to keep customers informed on the status of their outage.
"We recognize the challenges of being without power after such a devastating storm and we appreciate our customers’ patience," the Oncor statement said.
Lopez says not only have they had to go to the mall to charge their battery-operated devices. One of the days during the power outage, he and his family spent an entire day at Six Flags. There was very little they could do at home without electricity.
But eventually, as they entered another day without power, they had to throw out some of the food in the house.
"My pork chops, my chicken legs, ground beef, veggies, stuff that is going to go bad because it needs to be cooled and stuff," Lopez said.
Lopez had little hope of getting the power restored over the weekend because of what he saw in the forecast. Heavy rain hit their neighborhood Sunday evening. Standing water flooded several streets around Daniel's housing edition. But once the rain stopped Daniel spotted work crews in the alley behind their home.
After navigating five days in the dark with his family, just before 9 p.m. Sunday, Lopez and his family had their power come back on at home. It's just what his family needed after coping with darkness at home with no air conditioning and temperatures on the rise.
"I got a family of seven, family of eight with my dog," said Lopez.