Kroger grocery store scrambles after Ann Arbor power outage

By Erica Hobbs AnnArbor.com Freelance Journalist

Posted on Thu, Dec 10, 2009 : 5:56 p.m.

While thousands of families were in the dark last night, Wednesday'sÂ power outage left at least one Ann Arbor business scrambling to save its product.

KrogerÂ at 400 S. Maple Road lost electricity for about 10 hours last night after a winter storm caused a fire in a major power transformer at West Liberty Street and Maple Road.

“There was quite a bit of disruption,” said Ann Arbor resident Jim Kane, who was shopping this morning in the grocery store. “They had a lot of employees just restocking stuff.”

Dale Hollandsworth, a spokesman for Kroger, said despite the outage, no inventory was lost.

“(The store employees) reacted quickly, and as a result, they did not sustain any loss,” he said. “I would have to applaud that store team - they just did a fabulous job.”

Hollandsworth said the store rushed its fresh items to a refrigerated truck and was able to pack its frozen goods in dry ice to preserve them. By 4:15 a.m., when the power was restored, he said the food had survived the night.

“We had a guy there all night to constantly go around checking cases in coolers to see if temperatures held throughout night,” he said. “It just never happens that everything has to be thrown away, unless something really dramatic happened.”