Neighbors frustrated with ‘mess’ leftover by power company crew

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) –  Neighbors in one Pender County neighborhood are taking Duke Energy to the woodshed after they say a line crew left a mess clearing trees from a power line.

After WWAY reached out to the power company, a Duke Energy agent came to the place where neighbors have had to clean up after a line crew. What the agent told them was not what they wanted to hear.

“If you make a mess clean it up,” said neighbor Judy Little who’s called the Groves Point Plantation her home for 14 years.

Marion Knowles and Little said Duke Energy contracted crews cleared trees along this power line back in late January.

“Whatever they paid these people to do this work, they paid too much,” said Knowles whose home is right next to the land the work was done on. “I would fire them if they worked for me, they wouldn’t have a job.”

They said the crew did nothing about the dozens of saplings and pine trees left behind.

“This neighborhood did not look like this until after they came through and it is disgusting,” Little said.

The power company sent us this statement after our request for comment:

The customer who reached out lives near a property where we trimmed trees close to power lines and power equipment to help prevent power outages. When tree-trimming work occurs, we typically dispose of any small limbs and brush in landscaped settings. The larger pieces of wood are cut into manageable lengths for the property owner’s use. In non-landscaped sites like the property the customer inquired about, pruned vegetation and wood debris are left in place to bio-degrade.

“I thought when you cleaned up something, you cleaned up something,” Knowles said.

The day after we asked the company for comment, Knowles said they sent an agent to the neighborhood.

“It is what it is,’ that’s about what they told,” said Knowles referring to the representative.

It has left the 80-year-old and his neighbor to clean it up. They’ve put in a weeks worth of work to cut down and move limbs to Little’s yard.

They know now Duke Energy will not come through, so they hope the company in the future will be more respectful to customers.

“It’s just irresponsibility to it,” said Little. “There’s just no reason for it, they wouldn’t do their neighborhood this way.”

Knowles tells us the owners live in New Hanover County. He did not have a way to contact them so he says the only option they are left with is to keep cleaning things up.