WILLIS, Texas – An 87-year-old man says he was forced to spend weeks sleeping in his car after his electric company shut the power off, after he paid the bill.
Lonzy Williams says at first his electric company blamed the situation on a delinquent bill that he says he paid weeks ago. The power is finally back on now but there still seem to be more questions than answers.
The 87-year-old Willis resident says he’s lived in his home for more than 40 years, but for many of the past 35 days, he has had to sleep in his SUV to stay cool.
“On them 90-degree days you can’t even open the door without the heat knocking you down. So, I had to stay out here, so I keep the motor running and the air conditioner,” Williams said.
With no power, he says he had thrown away the food he had in his fridge
“I’d go to the restaurant, and the fast-food places, Popeyes, Burger King,” he said.
He says Entergy, the power company he’s used for some ten years or so, cut his power off back in mid-May despite what appears to be a statement from the company showing a zero balance.
“They cut your lights off on the 15th of May. On the 17th you paid it down to a zero balance?” Deven Clarke asked.
“That’s when they said they received that other money,” Williams replied.
“But even though your balance was zero, your lights didn’t come back on until today,” Clarke asked.
“That’s right,” Williams replied.
KPRC 2 first started calling Entergy yesterday.
“That’s the truck coming today,” Williams said pointing to a cell phone picture he took of a utility truck.
Williams says Entergy crews just replaced an old meter.
“See that’s the new meter that they put on,” Williams said as he showed Clarke the meter.
The question he has now is why it’s taken so long to fix what appeared to be a simple issue?
An Entergy spokesperson said they tried multiple times to get Williams’ permission to access the property and fix the issue but were unable to. Both Williams and his daughter say that’s not true. His daughter says Entergy only came out to fix the issue today, after we got involved.