COLUMBUS, Ohio — Many people across central Ohio are still without power. But for one woman, that means she could stop breathing at night.
AEP Ohio said power might not be restored until Thursday for many who live in Central Ohio. This comes after severe storms Monday night led to power outages as well as the need to intentionally turn off power for more than 120,000 customers due to the extreme heat on Tuesday.
Monika Bozman, a resident of Columbus, said she needs power so she can keep breathing while she's asleep.
"I am a CPAP wearer,” she said. “I can't breathe because I get stopped up and that's the one thing, that when I lay down, I need because I can't breathe.”
Bozman said her power was turned off just before 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
AEP said the Monday storms brought down more than 100 poles and power lines. Statewide, the storms knocked out power for more than 155,000 customers.
"Parts of the system we had to shut down so it wouldn't spread to larger and larger and larger outages,” said Tom Kratt, Vice President of Distribution for AEP Ohio. "We're going to work 24/7 to get everyone's power back on and get the system put back together just as quickly and responsibly as we can."
Kratt said AEP didn’t give a warning to customers before they turned the power off, but Bozman said a heads-up could've been helpful for everyone.
“I get what AEP did but at the same time, preparedness [is important],” Bozman said.