They have been dubbed the “Fay 1,500” and they have been without power for more than 10 days.

Some have moved in with family, while others have had to get used to cold bucket showers, candlelit rooms and no air-conditioning.

Belco crews have been out in force around the clock since Tropical Storm Fay hit in the early hours of October 12.

And they have reduced the number of those left in the dark by Hurricane Gonzalo from 31,200 to just over 3,000.

But while the huge operation to restore power and clear roads has attracted huge praise, some of those who have been without power since Fay smashed into Bermuda have become increasingly frustrated and upset as the days have ticked by.

And they believe they should have been moved up the priority list in the wake of Hurricane Gonzalo.

Joann Bernard, who lives in Ridgeway Road, Pembroke, has been without electricity since Tropical Storm Fay.

“For more than 10 days now we have had no power, so that’s no flushing water, no bath, no washing, no lights. It’s been hard,” she said. “We basically have not been able to live a normal life for more than a week.

“To me in today’s society it’s baffling why they can not get the power on for us. We pay a lot of money for this power.

“I thought that we might have been made a priority after Gonzalo hit because we had been without power for several days, but still we have heard nothing from Belco since October 11.

“It’s just very frustrating and annoying. Surely it’s time now that all the cables should go underground.”

At noon yesterday 3,281 Belco customers were without power, which was around the same number that woke up without power in the morning.

Another resident, who asked not to be named, but has also been without power since Fay, said: “Firstly I would like to praise the efforts of all the agencies including Belco that have been working so hard to get power back to everyone.

“It has been a fantastic effort, but, there needs to be a switch of emphasis. I just feel we should have been moved up the priority list.

“Being without power for this long really messes up everything; you can not communicate, you can’t do your laundry, you have no entertainment, you run out of clothes.

“It’s become a real pain.”

Last night a spokeswoman for Belco apologised to those residents who had been without power since Tropical Storm Fay.

“We have put together a team to try to address the Fay 1500,” she said. “They would have had power restored last weekend if we didn’t have an unprecedented second hurricane on Friday night with Gonzalo.

“Unfortunately, these customers were at the end of the first restoration list after TS Fay, either due to damage or because they were on a small branch line, or both. On Saturday morning, Hurricane Gonzalo thrust us into a new restoration process with about 31,000 customers without power for the second time in less than a week.

“We are trying to find ways to help these customers, because we do understand how hard this is, and we know how very frustrated they are. Unfortunately, this is proving difficult because of damage and logistics.

“Wherever possible, we are restoring their power before others, but in many cases, to reach them, we still have to restore the main circuits and large branch lines that feed electricity to them.

“It is a complex process. We have never had back-to-back storms like this before. We are doing our best to help, but we know that for many of the Fay 1500, our best will not seem like enough.

“We want them to know that they are always part of our planning process and a huge topic at every restoration work meeting. We hope that Bermuda will never again experience back-to-back storms like this.”