San Jose family stuck with loud generator for weeks after utility mix-up

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- A San Jose family is finally enjoying some peace and quiet after a utility mix-up left a big diesel generator running in front of their house for weeks.

When PG&E workers showed up at Emily White's home on New Jersey Ave., they had no idea how long she has been waiting.

"You're the first PG&E we've seen in over three weeks," she told the workers.

White's power was, in fact, never out. The outage was at a green box in front of her house, knocked over by a driver police say was drunk.

"The car pulled up behind it, it hit the box behind you and the box slammed and scraped all the way," White recalled.

She says it knocked out the AT&T service to half the neighborhood. AT&T quickly came with a new box and a generator to power it.

"They had to hook up a generator to it to get it working and I expect that for a day or two. It was an emergency and they had to fix it," White said.

But White said the generator stayed in front of her house for weeks, running day and night, and calls to AT&T didn't seem to help.

"And we could smell the exhaust in our house and the noise was just endless and loud. It vibrated the windows, we couldn't use our backyard, we went away on the weekends just to get away from it," White said.

They had to cancel their Father's Day barbecue and spent some nights in hotels. White says they never heard back from AT&T so they started calling the media.

"And all of a sudden, the fire was lit, and the same exact time the news trucks arrived, they pulled the generator way," she said.

In a statement, AT&T said that the generator was there while they waited for PG&E to come and restore power.

PG&E says it was a mistake. "We could have and should have done better by this customer. We want to do a deeper dive into why the work took so long," PG&E spokesperson Nicole Liebelt said.

Once they showed up, it didn't take long at all - only minutes - to reconnect the power and wire it into the box.

PG&E is paying for the family's hotel bill.

"I want to act swiftly to ensure that our customers' experience is positive," Liebelt said.

This leaves White with just one regret. "I wish we stayed at a nicer hotel," she joked.