Power outages cause inconveniences, closing of businesses

By MITCH MAERSCH - Daily News Staff June 14, 2001 About 3,600 customers in the West Bend area lost power for up to six and a half hours Wednesday afternoon and evening, causing the closing of several city businesses.

At about 3:30 p.m., the Wisconsin Electric Power Co. (WEPCO) started receiving calls on the outage, which affected the city and town of West Bend and the town of Barton, said Margaret Stanfield, WEPCO spokesperson.

WEPCO experienced an equipment failure at one of its substations, Stanfield said. She doubts it was due to a high use of electricity by customers running their air conditioners.

"It’s looking like we had an equipment problem at a substation," she said. "We made repairs and bridged customers to other lines to get their service back."

The specific cause is still under investigation, said Megan McCarthy, WEPCO spokesperson.

The majority of customers had power restored by 9:15 p.m., McCarthy said. A small number of commercial customers had power back at 10:30 p.m. Burger King and McDonald’s on West Washington Street were two of those.

Both restaurants lost power about 3:45 p.m., and both ended up closing soon after that.

"We ran for a little bit but it got too hot in here," said Seth Schommer, manager of McDonald’s. "We closed around 5 p.m."

There were no major problems with food because the restaurant’s main freezer kept power, Schommer said. The other coolers went off, he said.

Burger King was still experiencing problems from the outage this morning, which hit 90 percent of the store, said owner Curt Kelly.

"It’s (power) back up but it caused some relays in our equipment to short out so I don’t have my equipment up and running yet," he said. Kelly hopes to be ready for the noon rush today.

"I’m hoping for lunch today, praying for lunch today," he said.

During the outage, Kelly was kept in the dark on a cause or when power would be restored.

"I kept calling the electric company and they couldn’t give me a time when it would be fixed," he said. You can’t serve food in 90 degrees, he said, which caused him to close.

A manager at Ponderosa who didn’t give his name said his restaurant was without power from 3:50 to 9:15 p.m., which caused it to close as well.

Hardee’s Restaurant, 1370 W. Washington St., partially lost power at 3:50 p.m. and all power at 8:25 p.m., said Craig Jacak, manager. He closed at 8:25 p.m.

Traffic lights at the intersection of West Washington Street and Silverbrook Drive were not working either, he said. A police officer was directing traffic during most of the outage.

Jacak wasn’t sure when power was restored, but he said everything was back up when he came in this morning and he hadn’t seen any equipment problems yet.

Heads-Up Hairstyling 1624 W. Washington St., lost power as well, and ended up cancelling appointments.

"We had to cancel a lot of people and move them to a different day," said Gloria Keller, general manager. Without running water or heat for the driers, doing coloring and perms was not possible, she said.

The business made other adjustments to handle the "hairy" situation as well.

We did nails and finished cutting the last person’s hair by the window where there was light, Keller said.

The new Charcoal Grill on the corner of Highway 33 and Shepherd’s Drive, slated to open on Monday, was without power from about 4 p.m. to sometime between 8 and 9 p.m., said Mary Jo Aceto, assistant manager.

The restaurant turned off its freezers to avoid blowing the motor, but all the food made it through OK, she said. Only part of the power was lost - the phones didn’t work but the lights did, she said.

In driving to and from work during the outage, Aceto said traffic lights were out at the Villa Park Drive and West Washington Street intersection as well.

For Applebee’s, which didn’t lose power, other restaurant’s loss was its gain.

"It was obvious we were one of the few (with power) because sales were $1,000 over what we projected," said Tony Kafura, manager.

Applebee’s experienced no difficulties whatsoever, he said.

Pick ‘n Save North didn’t lose power either, said Jerry Hardy, manager.

http://www.dailynewsol.com/topnews03.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), June 14, 2001