EAST HAVEN — On their third day without power, Melissa Laudano and her son Alex Pedroza, 9, were getting pretty tired of the whole no refrigerator, no TV, no Internet, cold shower thing.
One of their neighbors, sweltering in a lawn chair on her porch, said she was too aggravated to talk.
Just about three houses away — and all the way up Vera Street to Short Beach Road — power was back on.
And Laudano can hear the generators of two or three other neighbors running all day.
But at her place on Vernon Street — and pretty much all along Vernon Street — it’s just a time to sweat heavy, try to keep yourself busy and throw out hundreds of dollars’ worth of food.
“It’s like three days now,” Laudano said, disgusted. “All the food got tossed.
“It shouldn’t take this long,” said Laudano, a United Illuminating customer who lives with her parents and her son. “This is ridiculous!”
As of 5:15 p.m. Thursday, UI had 2,072 of its 13,460 East Haven customers — 15.39 percent — still without power.
Just a few hundred yards out Short Beach Road in the Short Beach section of Branford, most people appeared to have their power back — although about half of Eversource’s customers in Branford remained without power, according to the town.
“You should have seen it here last night,” said Laudano. “It was like pitch black in this neighborhood.”
What’s the worst thing about being without power?
“That you can walk into walls,” said Alex.
“The worst thing is boredom,” said his mother. “For him, he’s a 9-year-old kid” and he needs things like TV and Internet to keep himself entertained, Laudano said.
“No TV, Internet, phone,” she said. “You have no lights! I literally sat on the porch all night last night because it’s so hot. You can’t sleep.”
Meanwhile, back in Laudano’s kitchen, “Today’s the day that everything goes bad,” she said.
mark.zaretsky@hearstmediact.com
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