AUSTIN (KXAN) — When a thunderstorm moves through the area, there is an understanding there might be power outages, but for one neighborhood in central Austin, the outages they’ve encountered have cost them thousands of dollars.

Amanda and John Hale live on East 56th Street. They say three major power surges in the last three years have jolted the whole block comprised of six homes, destroying big-ticket items like refrigerators and dishwashers and damaging trust in Austin Energy that things will be different moving forward.

“The house alarm just starts blaring,” said Amanda. “Sparks just started flying from the ceiling fan and dropping onto the carpet.”

The mother of two young girls sat in her kitchen, recalling the last three major power surges. “It just really scares me that it’s going to start a fire one of the times.” The fear, fueled by a lack of assurance from Austin Energy that despite repeated power surges, their neighborhood is actually safe and equipment is properly maintained.

After replacing their appliances, the Hales tried to get the utility company to pay for the damages but they denied, they weren’t alone. Austin Energy denied all damage claims filed from customers who all live on the same block and are powered by the same transformer.

The Hales say they’ve spent more than $3,000 in the last three years replacing damaged appliances, air conditioning units, a house alarm and more. Looking back at weather conditions the dates they provided for the power surges, while Aug. 29, 2014 and April 27, 2016 were filled with thunderstorms, Oct. 19, 2015 was a clear day.

“But this isn’t power going out, this is things literally look like they’re exploding and sound like they’re exploding in my house,” Amanda explained.

Just a few doors down, Ann Pelton’s family lost everything from a hot tub to a dishwater and television. She says the damage tops $4,000.

“Sparks just started flying from the ceiling fan and dropping onto the carpet.” – Amanda Hale

“We’ve spent a lot over the years,” Petton said. “It hurts the pocketbook.”

Austin Energy says they are not responsible for any of the damages claiming the power surges were due to “acts of God.”

“How many times can it be an act of God?” said an exasperated Pelton.

Carlos Cordova, spokesperson with Austin Energy, said initial problems in the area were found to be weather-related but after three years of power surge problems, the utility is now conducting a complete review of the area after Council Member Greg Casar’s office reached out to them about the ongoing issue.

Austin Energy did replace the transformer after the most recent surge in April but the utility company can’t say whether or not the transformer was the root of the power surges.

“That does happen sometimes. Where the quality of the voltage is affecting the electricity inside people’s homes,” Cordova said, but explained the utility is still not responsible for the damage.

Council Member Casar says he too lost power in severe storms at the end of April, but the power surges his neighbors suffered rose to another level of concern, one he didn’t feel Austin Energy was properly addressing, saying this has to be more than just the weather.

“It was just too much of a coincidence for folks’ appliances to get blown out multiple times in the course of just a couple of years,” Casar said.

He demanded further action from the utility when problems persisted, despite neighbors taking recommendations to protect their homes. The Hale family said even after buying surge protectors they still lost appliances and other items.

“You were able to look down this street here and see appliances out on the curb,” John said.

“Bottom line: we’re not a private electric company. Our stakeholders and our shareholders are the citizens of Austin. The point of having a public utility is that we’re here to serve the public, and it just didn’t seem right that we weren’t doing everything we could to make sure that people are getting taken care of,” Casar said.

City code indicates the city is not liable to a customer for property damage resulting from a power black-out, brown-out, interruption, “or failure of electric service, delay in commencing service, low voltage, high voltage, power surges, or fluctuation of power voltage, wave form, or frequency, caused by a negligent or non-negligent act of the City unless the damages are caused by the gross negligence or willful misconduct of the City.”

Beyond the money, those on E. 56th Street are still waiting on answers.

“I can get to the point until you told us to turn our power back on and things continued to blow up. At that point you have to take some responsibility, you told us to turn our power back on,” Pelton said.

Austin Energy has not been able to answer whether there are other clusters of homes in the city that have experienced similar damaging power surges and filed claims.

“If there’s an issue on our side, then we need to fix it,” Cordova said.

Results of the utility’s study of the area are expected to be ready on Friday.