High winds left an East Cleveland grandmother stranded in her own home this week.
A tree from a neighbor’s yard ripped the power lines off 82-year-old Carolyn Montgomery’s Baldwin Avenue home Monday night.
Thursday night she was bundled up in bed with a space heater nearby. It was powered by a gas generator on the balcony, but the wheelchair-bound grandmother can’t leave the second floor because her electric chair lift is inoperable.
She said a talk with workers from The Illuminating Company left her confused about how to get her power restored.
“I told him I didn’t understand what he was talking about,” Montgomery said.
"We can’t get her out of the house if there’s an emergency,” Montgomery’s daughter-in-law Sonya Harris said.
A spokesperson for The Illuminating Company’s parent company FirstEnergy said Montgomery would need to pay for a licensed electrician to make the repairs before power is restored, since storm damage repairs on private property are not the responsibility of the electric company.
That’s little consolation since Montgomery said she just found out her insurance lapsed. She’s hoping The Illuminating Company will giver her some clarification on how to move forward as temperatures are expected to dip below freezing all weekend.
