CINCINNATI — Some West End residents were left in the dark on Thanksgiving while their power went out for nearly 24 hours.
"It's like living back in the days before electricity was invented," said Michael Brown, who lives in the Park Town community. "First the cable went out. Twenty minutes later, the electric went out."
Brown and several residents said the outage ruined their holiday plans.
"You have families gathering today, people arriving from out of town staying in people's homes out here, and then there is no electric," Brown said.
"It happens too often, and it takes too long to come back on."
The power went out about 6 p.m. Wednesday and wasn't restored until late Thursday afternoon. Duke Energy said it took hours just to find the problem.
Crews finally determined on Thursday that it was a faulty underground power line.
Meanwhile, Brown and his wife and neighbors such as Ebona Gault spent the night in the dark.
“I’m ready to get out of here because it's freezing in my home,” said Gault. “We were having Thanksgiving dinner down here, but fortunately we have someone else that is willing to host.”
"This is the third time this year that this has happened and it's always a delay with the repairs, but there is never a delay with the bills," Brown said.
Brown said on top of Thanksgiving dinner being ruined, he was worried about the elderly.
"There are a lot of elderly. It's ridiculous. It doesn't make sense for this to continue happening," Brown said.
In a statement to WCPO, Duke Energy said, "It's so unfortunate that it's a holiday and we are working very hard to fix it ASAP."
Duke said it had more than 30 crews at work trying to restore power.
But Brown said he felt singled out.
"It always seems like this complex. You can look over at Richmond Village, they have electric,” he said. “It’s always Park Town."
RELATED: Wednesday winds knocked out power for 32,000 Duke customers.
