PUNTA GORDA - Pamela Paradise knows she should feel lucky. Hurricane Charley shredded numerous homes in her neighborhood but left hers intact.
After two weeks without power, however, Paradise is tired of waiting for the lights to come on.
Her kitchen floor is a tangle of electric cords. She has to unplug a fan to use the microwave. She showers in the dark in cold water. She can't cook. She can't sleep.
This week, as she sat on her porch watching the neighbors' homes light up, she cried.
"Everybody's leading a normal life, and I'm still here," Paradise said. "I don't feel connected to everyone else. I'm just stuck in this little messed up box by myself."
Statewide less than 18,000 customers remain without power, utility officials say. In some cases, power can't be restored because homes or business have been destroyed, wires connecting customers to power lines remain broken or meter equipment has been damaged.
"It's slow and tedious work to pick up remaining customers on these lines," said FP&L spokesman Bill Swank. "There's fewer customers on the lines still down."
For customers like Paradise, returning to normal feels just beyond their reach.
"I don't think people realize what it's really like," she said. "It doesn't feel like two weeks, but more like one long day that won't end."
Paradise and her husband, David, moved to Tee and Green Estates, a working class neighborhood 10 miles from downtown Punta Gorda, about 11 years ago. The home they bought had been condemned, but David Paradise rebuilt it, girding it for the killer storm that finally came Aug. 13.
Charley did little harm to the home, but it destroyed the fuse box.
An electrician told the couple on Monday that they needed a new one to get power turned back on. They got one later that night. But the electrician had too many customers Tuesday and couldn't install it. That was the day Florida Power & Light restored power in the neighborhood. Without a new fuse box, the Paradises couldn't get their power turned on.
Paradise doesn't blame FP&L. She only dreads the monotony that she knows she probably will have to endure for another week.
She's kept a journal so that she can remember Charley. "This hurricane got to me," Paradise said.
As the heat climbs to the high 90s during the day, Paradise sits at home in front of two fans to keep cool. An air conditioner powered by a generator cools the bedroom at night.
Alone in a neighborhood where everyone works, Paradise says she's battling feelings of isolation.
She usually works with toddler at the local YMCA, but she doesn't want to leave her home in fear of missing a repair truck.
"No TV, no radio," said Paradise. "I sit in the heat and listen to the generator."
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The gray townhouse Constance Walls shares with her three children has a dirt yard and a view of fallen trees. Part of a public housing complex on Baldwin Avenue in Arcadia, it can be a joyless place.
Lately, it's dark too, and hot.
Walls' building has been without power since Charley broke apart the circuit box. The buildings around, however, have power.
"It's unbearable," said Walls, 32, lying on the couch in her dark living room.
Three doors down, Alice Jones sweeps her stoop. "It's not easy, believe me," said Jones, 53. "You've got to cook outside. It's hot. It's real hot. You can't keep cool at night."
A friend loaned her a propane grill to fix meals on. Jones has water and canned food but has to go to the store every day for meat because it won't keep overnight.
Her 14-year-old grandson, Xavier Robinson, has asthma and labors to breathe at night.
"I'll be trying to sleep and I can't hardly breathe," he said. "I've had to get up and come outside to catch my breath."
The kids get bored too. "I miss my Cartoon Network," said Christopher Bing, Walls' 11-year-old son.
Walls, who works at a rehabilitation center in Port Charlotte, said the heat has an emotional toll too.
"Really, it makes you depressed," she said. "It takes a lot out of you. But there's nothing you can do about it."
A few days ago, Walls got a letter from the city housing authority that her $208 in rent was past due. Pay in three days or vacate, the letter said.
"I feel like I shouldn't have to pay," she said. "Not until I get lights."
* * *
John McGaughey and Denise Young, who live in the same subdivision as Paradise, have endured 14 days and nights without power. They are trying not to be consumed by discomfort and self-pity.
A giant eucalyptus tree punctured their roof when it fell onto one of the bedrooms of their house, built originally as a church in 1952. All the carpets were ruined by water, so they piled the furniture into a room that was spared and tore out the flooring.
At night, they crash on a mattress in the living room and watch movies on a DVD powered by a small generator in the littered and leaking garage.
Young, a 46-year-old carpenter, said her mood alternates between despair and resignation.
"After a while (the stress) is insurmountable," she said. "You get resigned to it. And then after awhile you just don't care. But then you get back up and go, "Oh well.' You have no choice, actually."
The couple's home is one of a handful in the area still without power. They're not sure why.
"It makes you kind of wonder where they've been," McGaughey said of the power company. "Because we're right up by the airport, right off the main roads."
At least they've had a few nights of good food, McGaughey said.
The dozen slabs of babyback ribs had to be cooked before they went bad, so McGaughey barbecued them on a propane-powered grill. Two nights ago, he grilled steaks.
"It's roughing it," he joked. "You couldn't call out for pizza."
Times staff writer Lou Hau contributed to this report.
