Help Restore Power & the kids well-being

Hello everyone, My name is Michelle White. This is totally out of my comfort zone, but I need to tell my story. Back in March then again in May when we got hit by some storms, our house had been losing electricity & we had some melted wires on top of our home. I have personally been in the house since 2017 & my other half in the house since 2007. So apparently they have been doing an ongoing investigation ever since. FPL told us they had found a jumper in our meter box and that the seal did not appear to be broken and it could have been there for a long time but they don’t know. They asked who had been in our meter box and I told them only FPL has ever been in our box & that as a woman I was really unsure what a jumper truly was to begin with. During storms and outages it has always been just them. So they explained they looked back as far as they could and legally & said they can charge us back pay from 5 years. I explained to them we have nothing to do with that. We don’t even know anything about that, mind you I’m the one who called for them to come to my house when all of these issues were happening in the first place! So they said we will be charged for the other 50% of power that we “stole” for the last 5 years. I explained to them we have never had our FPL off, always paid on time with normal Florida bills. The inspector on our case explained to me because we live in the house and have a current account at that address someone has to be held responsible and they are legally allowed to do it. So after we called to have someone come check our meter to make sure it was legit and to come speak with us, they sent a man who came and turned my power off after telling me on Ring Doorbell Video footage it was only going to be off for a few minutes to check the meter. He then leaves a paper copy and bill for over $10k at my door. Online my current bill is ($12,245.92) It gets better.. I explained to them when they did this on Wednesday, & on Monday my son who suffers with liver failure and many other medical issues has tested positive for Covid. He was on oxygen and takes a nebulizer every 4 hours and we need the power to do so. He was currently fighting high fevers. She told me the only way she would restore my power was if I paid $7,500 and then go on a payment plan. I said who has this kind of money to throw down on one bill that they aren’t even responsible nor guilty for? Ma'am this number just isn’t realistic. So she said well since I can see you have had an account with me since 2007 if you can come as close to the $7,500 as possible and I mean as close I can see if I can get it approved by my supervisor. (But that’s a big MAYBE) Then she says and after you pay it, it will be 24 hours for us to reconnect your power! I then said I have sent physician statements about you not being able to cut me off incase of an energency due to the kids health issues and my bill isn’t even due til September 13th! Well long story short after the 30 phone calls in a row I made for her to even have this conversation she was not willing to work with me. She said it has to be paid whether I like it or not and they have every right to make me. With this being said I couldn’t go anywhere because taking care of my son and my two daughters (11 &12) we all ended up catching COVID. My oldest daughter and myself ended up in the hospital with respiratory illnesses on top of me losing my voice in between the mist of things. I was not able to go to friends or even my moms house due to us having Covid just to keep everyone safe and not spreading it. So we stuck it out. I can tell you it has been the most challenging thing I’ve had to do as an adult. We have no electricity so we used a generator to connect our fridge, window AC units and a tv along with a cord we used to alternate charging batteries all day. Especially the phone. The car was our best friend to charge and cool down. I have missed taking my mother to a few appointments as she does not have much help getting around as a new amputee so we have had to make sure she had others checking in on her to keep her healthy as well. (Thank you for those whom have helped) Not to mention we almost lost our rescue dog days before this happened due to severe anemia. So we have been dealing with a lovely vet bill for blood transfusions and saving his life as well! We do have running water (very cold) but used our griddle grill outside to cook some foods and boil water for warm showers. At night we would have these huge LED mechanic lights to light up our house so we can see with everyone having a flashlight and a portable fan as well. We did lose everything in our deep freezer unfortunately and food in our refrigerator as we didn’t have a way to cook it, but we have been trying our best to survive! Now because the kids are all out of quarantine I had to get them into a hotel for a few nights so they can get some good sleep, hot showers a warmed up meal and have a way to focus on homework, mental health and their athletics they have this week. I also knew it was time for a break when my youngest daughter whom is 11 and suffers with a pituitary tumor was starting to have some hallucinations due to the high levels of stress. So now I’m reaching out to the public for any kind of help you may be able to do for these children to get back into being in their home! Any amount helps, any share helps, and prayer too! This has really been a one of a kind experience and has shown me how strong my kids truly are as well! Our friends and family made a good point that we still have our bills piling up and haven’t been able to do very much being sick so they told us you never know until you ask, so here we are. Lastly, I want to thank Erik with Channel 6 news for taking on my story, being extremely supportive, fighting on behalf of my children and allowing me to vent when I had a breakdown! I also would like this man named Mathew to go noticed as well. It had been a long night, I went downstairs to grab some of the kids belongings out the car and he held the elevator for me. He wanted to know if we were traveling and I sensed he could see I was going through a tough time. I gave him a long story short and guess what? He is a Pastor! God heard my cries and heard my prayers. He was trying to make me keep my faith and as this man stood and listened to my pain (and on my same floor) he asked if he could hold my hand and pray with me in the middle of the hallway and I never felt more relieved! God put me and him at the right place at the right time and Pastor Mathew probably doesn’t even know how much that meant to me! So Mathew who is on a mini vacation from Georgia thank you! Thank you to everyone who has read my story as this took a lot for me because I’m usually the one who is lending a helping hand and not the one asking. I truly appreciate everyone who has reached out to us and everyone who took the time to share or donate as well! We will be using any all all donations to help restore the power & get back into their everyday routines! Stay healthy & stay blessed!