'It's Been A Nightmare': Elderly Palmetto Bay Resident On Day 12 Of No Power After Irma

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PALMETTO BAY (CBSMiami) – Twelve days after Irma, there are still Florida Power & Light customers who don't have their power back.

CBS4's Gary Nelson spoke to some of them Thursday about their growing frustration with FPL.

Eighty-four-year-old Phyllis Krug is physically disabled, wheelchair bound.

She has a stove and microwave she can't use because 12 days after Irma she has no power.

"It's been a nightmare. It's been horrible, it's been very, very difficult," she said.

Her house is at least four homes on the block still without power.

A decorative driveway lamp at one house held up just fine, but FPL's power supply did not. The window still open, the juice still off.

Palmetto Bay Mayor Eugene Flynn mayor says he spent 12 days calling FPL about powerless constituents whose outages have fallen through the corporate cracks.

"We should have a system in place that should not have fallen apart the way it did. People like our residents on special medical needs have suffered greatly," he said.

IRMA HAD ONLY BRIEF MINOR HURRICANE GUSTS IN MIAMI-DADE.

FPL continues to repeat the mantra that Irma was monster.

"Irma was a major storm. Irma was incredibly large and was over the entire peninsula of Florida for a significant amount of time," said FPL spokesperson Peter Robbins.

FPL says downed vegetation made things worse, but Coral Gables is suing the company for its massive failure.

FPL has boasted spending $3 billion to harden its system in the 12 years since Wilma. That's relative chump change for a company that last year alone made $1.7 billion in pure net profit.

Krug, disabled and still in the dark, doesn't want to hear about FPL's hardening.

"Whatever improvements they made, it was not enough," she said.

"You don't know where the 3 billion went?" Nelson asked her.

"No, I no have idea," she responded.

No idea as she and others still wait for the lights to come on.

The village of Palmetto Bay may join Coral Gables in the lawsuit against FPL, as many other cities, to force the utility to provide a system that can be relied on.