ORLANDO, Fla. – The water is back on at a mobile home community in Orange County after being off for nearly a day, but one county official said the situation revealed much larger problems, with Hurricane Milton close by.
Starlight Ranch is a mobile home community near Orlando International Airport that is geared toward residents aged 55 and older.
News 6 received a message from one of the residents saying none of the people living there had water.
“We’ve had no water for 22 hours. The office closed yesterday at 12 p.m., three days before the storm,” Mary Rivera told News 6. “What kind of garbage is that?”
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Mike Janson is the resident who contacted us and told us they were not responding to their calls and emails, and they were not communicating with them as to what happened to the water. “I get nothing but that the mail is full. I talked to the maintenance man and even he is annoyed.”
We reached out to the corporate office in Chicago and shortly after they told us the water was turned back on and gave us this statement, saying in part:
“The outage occurred due to an electrical issue at the water treatment plant. We had our third-party electrical contractor as well as representatives of Duke Energy and Orlando Utilities Commission at the property yesterday afternoon and today to assess the issue....”
But we found there may be an even bigger problem, after discussing the situation with District 3 Commissioner Mayra Uribe.
“My concern is right now that water that’s just been put back on is running on a generator,” Uribe said. “That generator is going to run out of gas. You’ve got a lack of water. You’ve got a lack of fire hydrants. You’ve got a lack of major safety on a regular day. Now, put that higher with a hurricane pending within the next 24 hours.”
Commissioner Uribe recommends all the residents there head to a shelter.
News 6 will follow up after the storm.
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