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Miami-Dade In Clean Up Mode, Many Waiting For Power

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MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- Miami-Dade County is slowly but surely recovering from Hurricane Irma.

The clean up continued days after Irma hit and evacuees came home to a mess.

"I am just trying to get the house cleaned up, the trees down, get the trees cleaned up so people can drive down the street," said Pinecrest resident Austin Gaines

Many gas stations remain closed because they did not have power or gas - or both.

Stations that were open saw long lines - people most likely filling cans to power generators.

"It's always uncomfortable having kids at home, but everyone is safe so that's what's important," said Ivan Bargueiras.

With generators to power the store - a True Value Hardware store kept only their lights on.

"We're doing our best here to provide service for everybody between supplies, generators, clean up, chainsaws,"said Diego Castro with Miami Home Center.

They're sold out of generators. Lots of people were seen buying generators where they could. There were also lots of people upset with Florida Power & Light.

"I don't know about the power man. It's ridiculous. No ice. No food," said homeowner Bobby Oreyzi.

FPL boasted about the billions they spent to harden its system.

The company's CEO Eric Silagy in Miami Tuesday said Irma was ferocious.

"It is, it was a strong category 1 with some stronger winds here," said Silagy.

That's not true. Irma was a Tropical Storm in southeast Florida with only occasional minimal hurricane gusts.

FPL said its computerized system could see every meter and every line in real time. But when CBS4's Gary Nelson went to check the status of his power, the company's website said they were still assessing the cause of the outage.

A call to FPL produced no explanation.

Despite all this, some folks were keeping a stiff upper lip, making the best of a difficult time.

"After what was coming at us, Geez, we all got off easy," said resident Gary Rich. "That's what I'm thinking."

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