As storm cleanup continues, thousands still without power suffering costly food loss

DAYTON, Ohio ( WDTN ) — As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, 3,037 AES customers in the Miami Valley are still in the dark after Friday’s storms.

As communities continue to clean up debris and assess damages, many are still without power.

2 NEWS spoke with some residents about the impact of these widespread outages.

People say it’s been a long few days after much of the region lost power. The severity ranged from brief flashes to total loss for up to five days.

Some families used generators to power devices and home appliances like their refrigerators. For others, costly food items were spoiled after hours without power.

One woman told 2 NEWS she lost hundreds of dollars worth of food in just 24 hours.

“You just clean it out and start all over and go to the store and replenish. Just something you have to do,” said Linda Rhodes, Kettering resident.

Rhodes says all the cold and frozen food in her home spoiled without electricity.

“Everything in a freezer. There were some things we can keep in the refrigerator, but,” said Rhodes. “The ice cream and everything, it melted and I had chicken and other meats in there and they were soft. You can’t you can’t keep it. You have to get it to get rid of it.”

AES had previously said on social media it hoped to have power restored on Monday. 2 NEWS will continue monitoring outages and will provide updates as they become available.

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