Spoiler warning: Safeway power loss dooms frozen foods

Weekend power outage at Sonoma Safeway|

The Sonoma Safeway supermarket on West Napa Street lost power early Sunday morning, Sept. 25, and was forced to dispose of virtually all of its refridgerated and frozen foods on sale at that time.

A PG&E spokesperson, Deanna Contreras, explained, “An underground electrical distribution cable failed on Sunday morning on Fifth Street in Sonoma, disrupting service to Safeway. Power went out at 1:16 a.m. and was partially restored by 5 a.m. In order to make the repairs, PG&E had to de-energize the line. We rented generators for the store and had them on generator power by 9:30 a.m. Crews worked as safely and quickly as possible to replace 300 feet of underground distribution cable. Repairs were completed and Safeway’s power was back on by 5:17 pm.”

While the store was closed much of Sunday morning, shoppers were let back into the darkened, generator-powered store to shop for non-perishables for part of the afternoon. A customer service manager reached by phone when the store reopened said that the Safeway expected to begin receiving new shipments to replace the spoiled food on Monday.

Wendy Gutshall of Safeway’s Northern Calif. office said, “The temperature of products were monitored during the outage and any products not held at the correct temperature were disposed of accordingly.” Confirming on Sunday mid-afternoon that the now empty shelves of refridgerated and frozen items were being thrown out, one Safeway employee said, “Yes, and it’s starting to stink back there.”

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