Lady Yells at TECO

(Editor’s note: from our partners at The Serving Times)

As Blanche Devereaux once said, you can always depend on the kindness of strangers, an adage proven time and again in neighborhoods across Florida in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton. Whether it’s helping a neighbor set up their generator, clearing debris from the yard next door, or deciding not to just toss that dead armadillo over the fence into Doug’s yard, there are always people willing to help each other out. Aileen McCaffrey is one such neighborhood hero.

In the wake of Milton, the Palm Lake community of Riverview found itself without electricity with no estimation of when power would be restored. It’s then that Aileen McCaffrey sprang into action!

“You can’t sit around and wait for these problems to fix themselves,” says Aileen. “Times like these require people of action!”

Aileen tells us she’s no stranger to saving her community.

“During Helene,” recalls Aileen, “our neighborhood only lost power for eight hours. That was because of me.”

If it’s hard for you to imagine Aileen McCaffrey, a 64 year old retired realtor with no training as an electrical engineer, suiting up in a safety vest and harness to climb utility poles and repair transformers then you’ll be happy to know we asked for clarification.

“The second the power goes out,” explains Aileen, “I’m on the phone with the TECO, demanding they send someone out and get it back on! You just gotta keep calling, and calling, and calling, that’s the key!”

But can you really yell the lights back on? We reached out to Denis Hernandez, a customer service representative at TECO Energy, Tampa Bay’s foremost electricity provider, to find out.

“No,” says Hernandez, “calling to yell at us doesn’t get your power on any faster. Our linemen work very hard around the clock after a storm to get everyone’s power back as quickly as possible, and yelling at a customer service professional does nothing to speed up that process.”

We mention Aileen McCaffrey’s claim to be solely responsible for the restoration of her neighborhood’s electricity following Hurricane Helene.

“You can probably imagine,” says Hernandez, “that a lot of people call us thinking their neighborhood should be prioritized, so we’d be hard pressed to remember just one lady. That being said, yeah, I know exactly who you’re talking about.”

So you’re admitting that Aileen’s phone calls have led to faster recovery times for the Palm Lake community?

“Look,” says an exasperated Hernandez, “I might be inclined to be like ‘sure, whatever, you did it, hooray for you’ if it made her feel important or good about herself, but not if it means she’s going to keep calling. So let me make this as clear as I can make it: No! Calling your utility company and telling us to hurry up does not get your power back any faster. Stop it!”

While Denis Hernadez of TECO Energy says his nay about it, residents of Palm Lake beg to differ.

“I remember I was in bed sweatin’ balls,” says Marc Crespo who lives a street over from Aileen, “and then I wake up at like 2am feeling that sweet AC blowing. My balls and I thank you, Irene!”

“I remember seeing Aileen outside after the last storm,” says neighbor Debbie Perkins, “and mentioned that if I didn’t get power back that I’d lose all the meat in my chest freezer and have nothing to grill to celebrate my son’s parole ending and Aileen just said ‘Leave it to me, Debs. All I gotta do is tell a little white lie that you’re oxygen dependent and your power’ll be back on in no time! Just make sure to save me a burger!’. And even though Bobby violated his terms and got six months added to his parole, we still grilled up that burger for Aileen because she earned it!”

“I don’t know if that kind of thing really makes a difference,” says Ryan DeLuche who lives down on the corner, “but I’ll just say that Mrs. McCaffrey once got in a fight with the HOA over all her Trump flags and banners and won, so I wouldn’t put anything past her.”

Even with all this adulation, Aileen somehow manages to remain humble.

“Listen, Everyone depends on oxygen,” says Aileen, “so it’s not technically a lie.”

No, Aileen, we were talking about how humble you are.

“Oh, I just care about this neighborhood,” says Aileen. “But also because I hate to be inconvenienced and love yelling at people. If they want to call me a hero for that, then I’ll let them because they’d be correct.”

Okay, so apparently she hasn’t remained humble, but residents of Palm Lake should be grateful that someone like Aileen McCaffrey is out there using her petty entitlement for them instead of against them. That’s not a joke, she once got someone evicted for not bringing their trash pails in on time. So if you live in the Palm Lake neighborhood of Riverview, be thankful at least that she’s got something to keep her distracted. For now….