Action News Jax is investigating complaints about the city of Green Cove Springs’ electric utility.
The city owns and operates its utilities, which serve more than 4,000 residential and commercial customers.
1,500 of those customers lost power for several hours on Labor Day, and some claim power outages happen weekly.
Liz Parvin has MS, and says she gets muscle spasms in excessive heat. She says Monday was especially difficult.
“It can be a day like today where it’s beautiful, or you get lightning somewhere, and all of a sudden it’s off,” said Jerry Yocum.
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“Some of us have small children, health conditions and disabilities,” she said.
The city received a flood of complaints on social media after Monday’s outage.
After we started asking questions, the city said it is borrowing more than $10 million from a Jacksonville bank for major upgrades to its electrical system.
This includes grounding improvements to help redirect lightning strikes, and replacing electric utility poles and underground cables, among other improvements.
Those upgrades are expected complete in three years.
Green Cove Springs is currently working to replace 77 utility poles that failed inspection.