BOWIE, MARYLAND (WUSA)--If you're a special needs customer, don't expect special treatment from local utility companies.
Baltimore Gas Electric (BGE) says it absolutely cannot prioritize special needs customers because they're located across the service area. A spokeswoman says the utility needs to focus on the areas with the most customers first.
9NEWS NOW visited a Bowie neighborhood with downed trees and power lines... and still, no power.
"It's just infuriating," said Valerie Bell Powell, who is steamed. "Because you're talking about somebody's life. And my mother's life means a lot to me. A whole lot."
Her mother, 88-year-old Ruth Bell, is on life support. The former artist and retired DC Public School teacher hasn't had power in her Bowie home since Saturday.
"Why notify that she is a special needs if you can't restore power in a certain reasonable amount of time? It doesn't make sense to me," Powell said.
BGE told us it keeps a list of its roughly 8,000 special needs customers so in advance of a storm, the company can suggest they find alternative living arrangements, at their own expense.
"If you've informed them she's special needs-she's on life support-and you're telling me, find alternatives? If we found alternatives, we wouldn't even need them. We'd just take care of it ourselves," said Powell.
The family has called BGE every day. The utility suggested they take their mother to a hospital.
"To tell me take her to the hospital, like you can just easily pick her up, put her in a wheelchair and roll her out the door. That's not like that. Not like that at all. Just infuriating," she said.
Bell's children had little choice but to purchase a generator, but it only powers the medical equipment in her room. The rest of the house is dark. And hot.
"She means everything to me. Everything. She doesn't have many years left and but we want to make them as comfortable as possible," she said.
PEPCO says it has a similar policy overall, but if it gets a call from a customer with a medical emergency, it will try to get nearby crews to their location.
Written by Andrea McCarren
9NEWS NOW & WUSA9.COM