Families said they were not told about planned Duke Energy outage

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The hot and humid night was even worse for some south Charlotte families who had their power cut unexpectedly.

Some people are outraged Duke Energy did not give them any warning, but it may have been the customers’ fault they did not know about the outage.

Duke Energy said its policy is to call customers with automated messages about planned outages.

“In order to perform these repairs, your electric service will be interrupted for approximately five hours,” the automated message states.

A woman who lives at the Ashford Place Apartment complex played her phone message. But Friday afternoon, people in four nearby homes said they did not receive that notice.

"I was taking a shower, all of sudden the lights go out," said Christian Paez. "I seen people walking outside, wondering what was going on."

Rachel Highsmith said her mother has severe arthritis and needs electricity to constantly adjust her bed.

"It positions her where she can sleep comfortably through the night. Being that we were out of that, she had to sit up for those four-and-a-half hours that we were out of power," Highsmith said.

A Duke spokesman said customers can only get those updates if the power company has a customer’s current phone number.

Highsmith said Duke has her number, adding it has not changed for years. She wants them to check their system before there is another outage.

WSOC