Family without power for almost two weeks, while trying to care for mother in hospice
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Monitor, Oregon (KPTV) — A family in the town of Monitor, just east of Woodburn, has been without power in their homes and their businesses for nearly two weeks.
They say it’s not only been uncomfortable, but they’ve also lost thousands of dollars because of it.
Branden Rabe says he left a great job to come home and help take care of the family businesses.
An auto upholstery shop, a custom upholstery business, and his sister’s decor and gift shop sit three in a row along South Barlow Road, all without power.
“At first it was the ice,” said Rabe. “Then we had the trees and power lines come down, take our power out. Well, in upholstery we have industrial sewing machines that run 2.5 HP electric motors. Most generators won’t handle it.”
On top of all of this, Rabe’s mom is battling brain cancer in hospice care in the home on the same property. There’s no power there either.
“When you can’t provide for your family anymore you start questioning, ‘Alright. How am I going to pay for this? How am I going to be able to afford that?’ And you watch all your bills going through your bank account and you have no way to put money back in…It’s not fun,” Rabe told FOX 12.
The family’s lost thousands of dollars, just in business.
“We’re dumping gas into generators at five gallons a day to get some power in here,” said Rabe.
They’re not sure how much more they can take.
“It’s not fair to any human being to shut down their livelihood,” he said.
The Rabes say what’s been the most frustrating is PGE’s system. They understand there’s a lot of work to do and they live in a rural area, but they say their outage has showed up repeatedly as ‘repaired’ by PGE. They’ve had to re-report they have no power several times.
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