Ha, nope, certainly not normal! Doesn't look like we're going to be seeing much of this store's interior today, but stores in the dark are still cool, right?
In reality, I knew the power was going to be out here long before I stepped into the store, since it was not a localized power outage -- everything east of this store was out of power, but to the west most buildings still had power, which is why you could see lights in the gas station picture. I had made it all the way out here, though, so I figured I'd might as well have a look around inside. I wasn't really expecting the store to still be open, since stores normally can't really operate without power (and the power had seemingly been out here for quite a while -- since it was in the middle of a storm, I guess I should have checked that before heading to this store!), but they clearly had generators to operate at least some functions, including barely enough lighting to see around (still seemed like a little bit of a safety hazard, to be honest) and power for a few checkouts.
Oh, and if you didn't get it, the title is a Florence and the Machine reference. What's funny is that I knew that there was some music reference to use here, but I couldn't think of what it was -- but I'm listening to Florence and the Machine while writing these descriptions, and that song came on while I was writing about one of the other pictures in today's set!
I'm surprised they were letting customers into the store if it didn't have power, but I suppose their checkouts worked and they had enough lighting for their standards. Were the freezers and such operating off of generator power?
ReplyDeleteI once went to a Walmart a day after they had a prolonged power outage 2-3 years ago. They had thrown out all of their meat, milk, and so forth. Obviously, they didn't have time to get more shipments in so the store was completely out of all that stuff. It was quite strange looking.
I think I've been in stores before and the power has gone out. I seem to recall that happening once about 20 years ago at a Lowe's or Home Depot. Nothing of great interest happened so that's all I have to say about it, lol.
I do have an odd supermarket with no lights story to tell though and it concerns a store that was owned by Kroger and then converted into a supermarket affiliated with Albertsons. In early 2018, I took a bit of a strange route home from work. It was fairly late into the evening and I needed to pick something up from Kroger. There were three Kroger stores on the road I was taking between me and where I live so I decided to stop at the first one in case they didn't have what I was looking for and I needed to stop at one of the other ones.
The store in question was a Kroger Signature store built in the early 2000s. I had shopped there before, obviously. Everything looked normal as I was pulling into the store. As soon as I walk in, I notice that about 80% of the lights were turned off. I also noticed that the store had very little inventory left. I finally notice that there are going out of business signs up in the store. I had no idea that store was closing! After confirming that the store was actually open with one of the clerks, I decided to wander around the store in darkness. They didn't have what I wanted, but I did notice that they still had some staples like bread and milk so I guess Kroger was still stocking that throughout the duration of the liquidation sale.
What I never did understand is why Kroger did not have the lights on at that store during the liquidation even though the store was still open. I've heard of cutting costs, but that was ridiculous! It wasn't a case of a power outage either. I don't know. Anyway, a few months after the store closed, it was turned into an El Rancho, a Mexican-oriented supermarket here in Texas which has some investment from Albertsons even though it's not currently technically under the Albertsons umbrella.
With all this talk about no lights, I'm sure there's a Tom Bodett Motel 6 joke to be made, lol.
Yeah, that's certainly a first for me! Of course, we don't have a ton of power outages here compared to some parts of the country, but on the rare occasions with prolonged power outages in the past, stores have typically been closed.
DeleteI suspect that the coolers in the back were running on generator power, but as far as I could tell, the ones on the salesfloor weren't. Most of the parts of the store with refrigerated or frozen cases were closed off, and it appeared that the employees had moved all of the product out of them, so I'm guessing they were moved into the back. There also might have been a refrigerated truck out back instead -- I didn't wander around back there in the dark, but it sounded like there was a truck idling.
Wow, that's really weird that Kroger would intentionally turn off the lights in a store that's open to the public. Sounds like a bit of a safety risk, but what do I know! I get trying to cut costs in a store that's closing, but having the lights on (at least in the portions of the store that are still open to the public) seems like a basic need.
I've had two encounters of being in a store with the power out, one being after Florida's back to back hurricanes in 2004. We decided to go to the Publix by our house at the time, which was open, but running on limited generator power. Only a few lights were on, and all the coolers were empty since all that stuff spoiled from the power outage. It was a weird experience. Even the registers weren't working, and I remember the cashier had to ring up our purchase using a regular calculator! After that crazy hurricane season, Florida passed a law requiring all major stores (like Walmart, Target, and other grocery stores) and gas stations to install backup generators because of the huge mess the power outages created. So now when you're in a store and the power goes out, everything goes dark for a few seconds before all the lights turn back on and everything goes back to normal. At least by me, an experience like this would be extremely rare to ever see again!
ReplyDeleteBecause of that law, my second experience of being in a store when the power was out happened a few years later at an old-school GM-only Walmart in Pennsylvania, while shopping with my grandparents. We were in the store and all the lights went out, and since it was an old store, there weren't any skylights or backup-lights in the place (so it was quite dark in there!). Employees were frantically running around with flashlights trying to guide everyone out, with one or two registers running on back-up power for people who wanted to purchase what they had.
Pretty interesting that Publix would intentionally be on with no power and not even registers, but I guess it's not too surprising considering that this is Florida, which I'm sure has many more power outages than we do here! It seems completely crazy to me that Florida would require stores to have full backup generators, but again, I suppose it's a completely different environment down there. I've personally never experienced a power outage lasting even a full day, though Port Angeles did lose power for many days last winter.
DeleteI have a few photosets on flickr where I went inside a store while the power was out. Two of the times were at the Horn Lake Target, and I think the first time constitutes the very first photos I posted to flickr. I think that time was just an isolated occurrence at the Target, but the next time it was all over Horn Lake; I got pictures at the next door Kroger that day as well.
ReplyDeleteTarget had some backup lights both times (probably not more than you saw in this store), and kept their registers running, but strangely Kroger didn't seem to have any backup lights and I don't think the registers were working either. The last time I was in a store and the power went out was at the Memphis Kmart. Thankfully, we were in the garden center where some sunlight was, because they didn't have any backup power, either. The power came back on a moment later which was also good because I wanted to finish my tour!
Yep, I definitely remember seeing those pictures of yours! That's largely what inspired me to actually take pictures this time, even though you can't really see much of anything about the store itself.
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