‘Like a war zone up there': Some North Bay residents endure fifth day without power

It's been five days since the brunt of the storm and some North Bay residents are still in the dark.

While customers wait for their power to come back, they're finding ways to get by.

Adam Venn spent his Thursday afternoon at the laundromat after his family ran out of clean clothes.

"We have a generator, but there’s only so much you can do with a generator," he said.

Venn lives in a remote area of Sonoma County where he says 10 large trees came down in his backyard. The power lines are broken in six places on his road.

"One tree after another came down and we’ve been having to cut our way out pretty much," he said. "It’s pretty much like a war zone up there. It’s hard to describe how wild it was."

Mika Miranda is in the same boat. She, too, is on day five without power, trying to be patient with PG&E.

"I know that they’re working really hard, and it’s just kind of a freak incident I think with the weather," she said. "Hopefully everyone’s doing OK."

PG&E said crews have restored power to 1.4 million customers so far.

"We know how frustrating it is to be without power," PG&E spokesperson Megan McFarland said. "We are doing everything we can to get the power back on for customers. These final outages are some of our most complicated and most remote areas with incredible amounts of damage."

Mai Shizu is brushing her teeth at work because she doesn’t have running water at her house. She’s charging her phone and electronics at work, too. Five days without electricity has been rough.

"It’s been pretty cold in the house," she said. "There’s no heat. We can see our breath inside. Me and my parents have been huddling around our propane campfire fire stove cooking whatever we can."

Venn said he won’t be surprised if it takes another five days to restore his power. Fortunately, he has a wood stove.

"Plenty of wood," he said.