Business owners react to NV Energy power outage

RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – NV Energy issued a PSOM in Northern Nevada, in effort to prevent wildfires. “I looked out the windows and the entire neighborhood was dark,” said Mary Doyle, a resident who lost power in West Reno.

15,000 NV energy customers in Northern Nevada, waking up to no power. “The house is cold. That’s the worst part,” added Katie Cole. “The house is cold. It’s warmer out here than it is inside my house.”

The planned outage is hitting business owners hard. “It’s a big hit because customers are affected, employees are affected. We are affected,” said Mimi Butler, who is the owner of Bueno Grill, which has been a staple in the local community for 25 years. “That’s a whole days worth of business. We are open everyday and its a big potential to lose a chunk of sales for the month. It also is worrisome because our employees aren’t coming into work. For them they don’t get their paycheck for today. For our customers, we cant serve our customers.”

Many of the business owners in the Mayberry Landing Complex are adapting to the “no bueno” message this morning. Some owners had to use generators, while others scrambled to alert staff and navigate obstacles.

“Having a little bit more warning would be nice,” said Cole Butler, the manager of Bueno Grill. “We woke up this morning and I just found out about it around 9 o’clock. I was planning on coming in at 10, so I well made a stop at the store and got some dry ice. We may or may not be open today.”

Butler says food and produce preservation is the name of the game. “It’s all about saving products right now when we are not open. The refrigerator is not working. We just kind of need to hunker down and store.”

The restaurant says they will be down a couple thousand dollars, due to the outage. Even the employees will be without a check. “I got word that the power is not expected to come back on until tomorrow at noon. I had to re-text and say it looks like you’re not coming in. We don’t need you today because we won’t be open,” said Mimi Butler.

The owner says the shop is rarely closed throughout the year and she is not used to turning customers away. “I had to change our outgoing message and forward phone calls from the business to my personal phone so I can let our customers know what’s happening and why we are closed. Hopefully, invite them to come back tomorrow when we are open again.”

NV Energy says some of the impacted zones will have power restored tonight and the rest hopefully sometime tomorrow.

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