April 21, 2023 |
Photo – Hanna Hometown Market – Courtesy Google Photos
A 2-hour electrical power outage, affecting most of Hanna Wednesday evening, caused big trouble at the Hometown Market.
From 5:32-to-7:16 p.m., over 500 Hanna homes and businesses were without electrical power. Senior Communications Specialist at Pacificorp, the parent company of Rocky Mountain Power, David Eskelsen said the outage was caused by faulty equipment on the electrical lines.
General Manager, of the Hanna Hometown Market, Audrey Seegmiller said she was at home preparing dinner for her children when the power went out. Seconds later, Seegmiller said she received a call from her employees informing her the store was out of power too.
Seegmiller said she raced back to the store. With no electricity, the freezers and refrigerators were not operating. Seegmiller said the frozen food would be fine for several hours, but the race was on to save the perishable items before they thawed out.
Dairy, meats, and prepackaged fruit must remain above a certain temperature. The FDA and USDA both advise that food kept above 41 degrees for more than two hours should be discarded. If Seegmiller wasn’t able to transfer the refrigerated food into the freezers, she would lose valuable stock. Not knowing when the power would come back on, Seegmiller said her employees began to move the cold items.
Seegmiller said the refrigerators warm up quickly without power, but take a long time to cool down to the proper temperature. To ensure the food didn’t spoil, Seegmiller said her employees waited until the next morning to put the cold items back into the coolers.
The freezers weren’t the only things affected by the power outage. The system used by the Hanna Hometown Market to process payments relies on the internet. With the internet down, Seegmiller was unable to sell any product and had to close. The store manager said the weather has changed people’s shopping habits, so losing 2 hours of business caused a serious financial impact on the store.
By Thursday morning, the Hanna Hometown Market was back up and running. Seegmiller thanked her employees for their hard work during the power outage.
