People still without power 5 days after historic wind storm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Five days after a damaging wind storm, thousands are still waiting for power to be restored.

LG&E hoped to get everyone’s power back on Wednesday, but according to their maps, more than ten thousand people are still without electricity.

While the majority of Jefferson County has had their power restored, a lot of people are still without and are having to pay thousands out of pocket to resolve their issues.

All across Louisville you can see downed trees in front yards, multiple trees knocking each other over and power lines still down or damaged.

If you walk down Dundee Road in the Hayfield Dundee neighborhood, you will see several trees down.

Three of which happened right near Tom Payne’s home.

Payne says he heard the two trees from his neighbor’s front yard fall but it was the tree in his backyard that took out the electricity for his home.

Payne says he’s been without food, light and hot water for five days and is now waiting for LG&E to come to his home.

He said he knew the damage was pretty severe and the cost and waiting times to get it done has proved it.

“It’s all ready to be hooked up but they can’t hook it up, only LG&E. And how frustrating is that? Very! I mean I could always get it expected but their rule is that they have to hook it up,” said Hayfield Dundee resident Tom Payne. “I guess you can mess it up pretty bad, I don’t know but they’ve done their work though. Ten thousand dollars!”

Payne hired Tom Drexler to fix his wiring and is now awaiting LG&E to connect the pieces. He says LG&E is expected to come to his home within the next few days.

He described mother nature as being unpredictable and says that this time he was just unlucky.

“It’s all about luck, and you mean just like this I got the bad luck. Three out of the four trees fell right here,” shared Payne. “I got to go out to eat because everything in my fridge is going and in the freezer.”

Others have had better luck. WAVE News spoke to another man in Buechel who saw a tree fall feet from his house but was able to regain power two days ago. The days without however, have taken its toll.

“At night time when the temps dropped it got real cold without the heat running and everything and it was kind of painful and it was really really just drug all my energy out and I ended up calling off a day of work and just had to bundle up in bed,” said Buechel resident James Sullivan.

In terms of the trees near his, Payne says he’s waiting to get them removed. Louisville Public Works says they’re working around the clock to get to all the debris across the city.

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