FOREST LAKE, Pa. — It was a different type of yard work on this Saturday afternoon for Raymond Fike and his son Aidan.
The pair spent part of the day installing a telephone pole in their backyard in Forest Lake Township.
Tuesday's storm knocked down a power line right behind their home.
The Fike family is still relying on a generator to keep the lights on, a luxury they didn't even have the first few days.
"It's been a long boring week, going to get a lot of gas for the generator and going to families to take showers," Raymond said.
The Fikes say PenElec told them not to expect power to come back on until at least Monday. But they both know the first thing on their to-do list when that happens.
"I'm gonna take a shower in my own jacuzzi!" Raymond said.
"Take a bath and open the pool maybe," Aidan said.
Just a few miles away, Marjorie Tator had a much better day.
The first thing she did when the lights turned back on Saturday morning - text and call her concerned family members.
"Yay! I got power!" she recalled.
Next, it was time to clean out the refrigerator and invest in a generator.
But she was still in high spirits, after spending 4 days heating water on the stove, and 4 nights piling on blankets to keep warm.
"Well, I'm a country girl so, I pretty well know how to handle my stuff, ya know?"
In Lackawanna County, volunteers packed up hundreds of cars with free food, milk, and water at the Benton Township Community Center.
"We've provided food to over 200 families already today," said volunteer Susanne Green.
The community center's monthly food distribution wasn't scheduled for this week, but Mother Nature doesn't care about the calendar. This week's storm created a need.
"It's hard these days with rising food prices, so they don't have extra money to replace everything in their refrigerator so this is gonna help fill that gap," Green said.
Power is back on for much of our area, but there are still hundreds of homes without it, mostly in Susquehanna County, and mostly serviced by Claverack.
In a statement on social media, the company says power should be restored for most by the end of the day Saturday, but some isolated outages may remain throughout the weekend.
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