GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP) — Some people living in the Hamilton Forest neighborhood in Greensboro were without electricity and running water for nearly 72 hours.

Around two dozen Duke Energy lineworkers restored the power in the community Monday afternoon.

“We lose power very quickly, and it takes a while to get it back,” said Richard Ranieri, who lives on Winview Drive. “We really can’t cook, can’t clean, makes it a little tough.”

Ranieri and his neighbors survived without lights, heat and running water for three days.

“The biggest challenge is keeping food cold…that’s, unfortunately, a losing battle at this point,” he said.

He tried to save $500 worth of groceries in his refrigerator and three ice-filled coolers. It contained items he planned to cook for his wife and 91-year-old mother.

“It’s unfortunate we end up having to do this, ” he said. “This is what’s going to drive us to break down and buy a generator.”

Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks told FOX8 there was significant damage in the neighborhood.

“Six broken poles and eight spans of line down is a pretty heavy damage job,” he said.

It takes crews around five hours to fix one utility pole.

“A lot of the poles that needed to be worked on were not in areas we could put our bucket trucks,” Brooks said. “Our crews had to go in and climb that, and that adds a lot of time to the restoration.”

Power can be rerouted to the neighborhood from another area, however, it didn’t work this time.

“We have options to reroute power,” he said. “The self-healing technology couldn’t reroute around this particular area given the scale of the damage.”

Brooks told FOX8 that tree trimming is scheduled for the neighborhood, which helps prevent unexpected outages.

There are no plans to bury utility lines in the area.