A man from County Durham has launched a petition to get all residents left in the dark by Storm Arwen and Storm Malik compensation.
Paul Robinson, 69, who lives in Dipton, which he said is notorious for power cuts, said residents in the village were left without power for 41 hours during Storm Arwen and 25 hours during Storm Malik.
However, he said that he was told by Northern Powergrid that because the power cuts were less than 48 hours, they would not be entitled to any compensation.
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But he said residents have been without power for more than 60 hours when you add both storms together and described it like "living in the dark age".
He said: "I live in Dipton and it's notorious for power cuts, I've lived here for eight years and there's always power cuts and we're still having problems today.
"During Storm Arwen, the power was off for about 41 hours. Then during Storm Malik, we were out of power for 25 hours.
"When you add up how long we were out of power it's more than 60 hours so in that sense we absolutely meet the threshold.
"It doesn't sound like very long but when you have no electricity, no heating, and no communication from Northern Powergrid it's pretty miserable.
"I'm 69 and I'm seen as the young kid on the block. We have lots of old people living here and they were freezing.
"Northern Powergrid has been paying out compensation to some people but I think there is such an unfairness with it.
"We can't even get £70 compensation. It was like living in the dark ages, we were literally in the dark."
After trying to talk to Northern Powergrid about compensation, Paul received a letter that said this would be the company's "final response".
Paul said: "I got a letter which basically said this is their final response. It may be resolved for Northern Powergrid but it's certainly not resolved for us."
Paul also criticised Northern Powergrid for how they communicated with residents during the storm and said they were "left to fend for themselves".
He said: "We were essentially stranded during the storm, we felt marooned. A lot of these people had been stuck in their homes isolating because of Covid and now this.
"We were left as a community to fend for ourselves. We have lots of elderly residents and young families who were left freezing.
"People were told to just get a take away delivered but Betty down the road doesn't ring the pizza shop and most places were shut anyway.
"We don't blame the engineers at all as they did a brilliant job during the storms, they did their best."
Paul also said Northern Powergrid kept giving residents "false hope" about when the power would be back on.
He added: "We kept getting text messages off Northern Powergrid saying the power would be back in six hours then eight hours and it was giving people false hope.
"People were saying to their families it's okay the power is coming back on when they could have made other plans."
A spokeswoman for Northern Powergrid said: "Storm Arwen and Malik devasted parts of our network and caused significant damage and disruption for customers.
"If the electricity supply fails due to severe weather, we make payments in line with the industry Guaranteed Standards of Service.
"Whilst we don’t comment publicly on individual cases, we want to reassure our customers that our teams have worked to make compensation payments to eligible customers and respond to any enquiries as quickly as possible."
If you would like to sign the petition, you can do so here.
