TELECOM Digest Editor wrote:
> I lost close to a hundred dollars worth of
> refrigerator/freezer food during the eight hours I was without
> power. (7:30 PM to about 5:00 AM).
Some say food will last a good number of hours if the doors are not
opened. I don't know what the cutoff time is. Obviously it depends on
the insulation quality of the fridge and the room temperature.
> Walmart is going to stay closed over the weekend in order to restock
> all their frozen grocery items
My neighborhood power relability is not so good. One local restaurant
got a generator and the police have a generator for the traffic light.
If storms are predicted, these generators are pulled out to be ready.
The local convenience store has to dump all its perishables which is a
lot of food (frozen and deli items of which it sells a lot). Seems to
me they should get a generator for their frig/freezers to save their
stock. Even if the store has to close due to no lights at least they
can reopen immediately when the lights come on. However, the
generator needed for powering commercial grade and size freezers and
refrigerators may be very large and too big to be practical.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Now that the weekend is over and things
are back to at least a semblence of normalacy, we here (the Townson
household) have found have found that much of what we considered to be
'ruined' in fact unthawed a little but is mostly okay. I kept the
refrigerator/freezer doors closed entirely the entire night except
once for a jug of icewater and cola to drink. An informal audit taken
of some of the restaurant business places around town (such as Dairy
Queen where we ate Saturday night) said Friday night was a real
bummer, having to clean up/close up in the dark Friday night, but they
managed to get by. Microtel and Super Eight (two motels along that
West Main Street strip as well as Walmart are still trying to get
things back to normal as of today, Monday afternoon. All the
businesses along there now have generators, compliments of Westar
Energy. They even gave a couple generators to the handful of
residences still affected out there, and told them all to _carefully_
ration the power among themslves.
Walmart -- not to be outwitted -- has a couple of large, noisy
generators sitting in their parking lot, which is otherwise taken
over by Westar/KGE trucks and equipment. The main road into Walmart
has police cars with officers waving everyone away, so Walmart fixed
things up so if you wish to get into their store, there is a little
tiny road several yards west which terminates in their parking lot
(otherwise occupied by large, heavy, very specialized trucks and
other units, but Walmart kept about one row of spaces for their
customers, which is being shared with Walmart's own freezer trucks
and a mechanical fork lift truck which someone drives around getting
things out of the freezer trucks. Most of the store is still dark;
the generators cannot light the entire place as Walmart would like,
and although they say they are 'open for business' when we went by
there this morning, 'business' amounted to perhaps two or three
customers around some taped off registers and most of the store
sort of a gray color from the skylights which were letting in sun
light and the few overhead lights the generators were able to deal
with in addition to serving the computers, the phone system and the
freezers.
Who I really feel sorry for out there is Dr. Epp and his veternary
clinic/hospital. The poor animals must have really suffered in the
heat over the weekend, although I saw a generator parked in _his_
parking area this morning; but a sign said 'kennel is closed at this
time, elective surgery (i.e. getting your dogs and cats 'fixed') is
cancelled, please re-schedule; emergencies only at this time. And the
local animal shelter is a couple blocks away. They are also categorized
as a 'business' which put them sort of low on the totem-pole of the
Westar emergency repairs. :( Over here on the east side of town, we
sit here in relative ease and comfort today. PAT]
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com