Power is slowly starting to light up the Tampa Bay area after Hurricane Irma knocked it out over the weekend. So many people are still without internet, cable and phone and some elderly people, who are without cell phones, say it is making them feel as if they are still in the dark.
88-year-old Ed Green says the lights are on in his Pinellas County mobile home but his phone is not.
He bundles it with cable, which means everything is out.
"I feel lost,” he said.
But he isn't alone; Rose Miccolo lives across the street and is in the same boat. She and her husband ordered an antenna off Amazon weeks before Hurricane Irma hit, they pulled it out of their closet and hooked it up to see if it worked.
“We are picking up several channels, a local news channel I think with ABC,” said Miccolo.
Her phone and internet are still dead and they plan on finding a more permanent spot for the antenna until crews get things up and running again. She says her husband is installing an antenna at Green's house to help him connect.
"I'm not getting any news one way or the other. I don't know what's going on in this world,” he said, telling ABC Action News he wasn't even sure if the hurricane had left the state yet.
A lot of the major companies, like Spectrum, Comcast and Frontier are scrambling to get things back up, working closely with power crews to assess the outages. None of those companies could give a solid timeline, but say they know where the outages are and are working quickly.
Spectrum is reminding people of the 32,000 FREE WiFi hotspots throughout the state available to them right now. Just open up your phone’s settings, and click on the “FREE SPECTRUM WIFI” that pops up. You must be in reach of one for it to appear on your phone.
If you need a computer, libraries are good options too.
Comcast is also reminding customers to not worry about billing questions. Its main goal is to get things up and running for you, so you’re comfortable and happy with service.
Miccolo says neighbors should be looking out for each other.
"If you know that someone is handicapped or elderly it's probably a good time to go knock on their door," she said.
