COLUMBUS, Ohio — AEP Ohio is addressing a number of power outages impacting thousands of residents in the northwest Columbus area in recent weeks.
Many customers have been saying they’re fed up with the inconvenience, including Dublin resident, Roxxi Heart.
"It just impacts every part of my life,” Heart said.
Heart said the outages have been occurring on a weekly basis.
"They last for approximately two hours or so,” Heart said.
According to AEP, between Aug. 14 and Sept. 5, 12,500 customers in the northwest quadrant of Columbus experienced two to six power outages. The company said a majority of them were caused by squirrels getting on equipment in the station that feeds power to the area.
"[I’ve been] worried about my food being spoiled if the power doesn't come back on soon enough, keeping the fridge cold making sure it stays cold in there. Just all the little things you don't think about until the power goes out,” Heart said.
Since the outages first occurred, AEP said they’ve aggressively taken steps to prevent animal access in the station. Last week, they also consulted with their fencing provider to ensure all issues were addressed.
But Heart said she’s still being affected by outages as of Sunday.
"Every time they say we fixed it this time, a week later animals got in the enclosure, we fixed it this time... same excuse, same answer, same problems,” Heart said.
Heart said her power went out Sunday morning and last Friday morning.
AEP said this weekend, squirrels accessed different equipment located outside the station, causing an outage for about 1,750 of the same customers who had previously been affected by the other outages.
Heart feels more should be done to accommodate those affected by it.
"It's very frustrating when they're the only company that I know of that doesn't give discounts. If I lose my cell service, if I lose my cable service, if I lose literally anything else, I get discounts. Not from AEP,” Heart said.
AEP said crews worked all day Sunday assessing poles and equipment, installing additional animal mitigation outside the station and evaluating if other measures can be taken to prevent outages.
Heart said the frequency of these outages has been unacceptable.
"To inconvenience us like this, it's ridiculous, it's uncalled for,” Heart said.
AEP stated they’ve communicated to customers the cause of the outages and steps they’ve taken to address the issues.
The company added, "We fully understand why customers are frustrated. We are not meeting their expectation or ours — and that is to keep their power on. Our operations team is doing everything they can to make that happen.”