‘Very resilient bunch’: Handful of Old Sacramento shops stay open despite power outage
Although most shops were shuttered, mired in the third day of a power outage brought on by a downtown electrical substation fire, a few dozen people strolled around the Old Sacramento waterfront district on a brisk Thursday afternoon — some walking for leisure, others perusing handfuls of shops that remained open with no electricity.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District in an update Thursday morning said it is on track to return power to about 550 downtown customers by Friday morning. SMUD says crews are working “24/7” on repairs.
A majority of Old Sacramento remains closed and without power until SMUD can complete its repairs.
But a few shops opened up Thursday, going old school in Old Sacramento: doing business cash-only and relying on the minimal hours of daylight available in mid-December.
At Munchies, the candy store specializing in saltwater taffy, manager Phillip Perez said he hadn’t planned to open up for customers.
He brought in a generator Wednesday to hook up his printer while waiting for deliveries to arrive.
“Then I got to thinking about it. ‘Oh it’s got two outputs,’” Perez said, holding up the small generator. “So I can put the scale and the register onto it and see if that works.”
It did, so he decided to open the doors to customers, doing so again Thursday.
“People actually came in. I did halfway all right for the circumstances.”
Perez had to close down shop around 4 p.m. Wednesday, as clouds and the incoming storm brought on early darkness.
A young child in the store, sifting through candy barrels with a sibling and their parents early Thursday afternoon, shouted to Perez: “Thank you for being open today!”
Other shops were open but scant on customers.
“We’re just taking the time to do inventory and restocking,” said Melissa Aldrete, an employee at Kolores, a Mexican import and gift shop.
Aldrete said Kolores hadn’t had any customers in its first half hour open, and that it would stay open until 4 p.m. instead of its usual 7 p.m. closing, unless the power happened to come back on early. Kolores was accepting cash and Venmo payments.
A few other businesses, including a wine tasting bar and a couple of antique stores, were also open – along with Hoppy’s Railyard Kitchen & Hopgarden, the most modern rebuild in Old Sacramento and the only business with power still on, connected to a separate network from the rest of the district.
But the bulk of shops on Front and Second streets had handwritten signs telling customers, “Closed, no power” or instructing delivery drivers to knock on their doors.
A sign in the window at Evangeline’s Costume Mansion gave “customers who have traveled far to shop at our store” with a phone number – or told them they could “knock loud” – to be let inside, where transactions were cash-only.
About 1,300 on the downtown grid lost electricity midday Tuesday when a fire broke out at a substation near 6th and H streets. One of the substation’s three networks sustained extensive damage. The other two networks were de-energized as a precaution, then re-energized Wednesday morning, kicking power back on for about 750 customers.
The California State Railroad Museum, closed since Tuesday, also had to cancel its Polar Express train ride attraction for a second straight day on Thursday, Old Sacramento district director Scott Ford said.
The winter holiday season is typically Old Sacramento’s most profitable period, and a “critical time for all our businesses,” Ford said. He hopes that shoppers will turn out in force this weekend to help rebound from lost business.
“We have a very resilient bunch down here,” Ford said.
The Sacramento History Museum, next to the railroad museum, lost power but was able to use its 1850s printers to continue pumping out holiday cards, museum executive director Delta Pick Mello said in an email.
Ford also said the Theatre of Lights holiday lighting event, held Thursdays through Sundays in the center of Old Sacramento, had to be canceled Thursday night.
Ford said organizers did consider running a modified version of the light show using generators. But the big concern was that the two main parking garages adjacent to Old Sacramento remain closed, meaning it wouldn’t be safe to draw a big crowd.
The district tentatively hopes it can proceed with Theatre of Lights and Polar Express rides Friday, if the power comes back on that morning as SMUD anticipates.
The downtown ice rink at 7th and K streets was also closed Tuesday due to the power outage. It reopened briefly Wednesday afternoon but had to close early due to “poor ice conditions” brought on by weather. The rink is open for business Thursday afternoon and evening, according to its Facebook page.
Residents return to high-rise after outage
The power outage prompted the evacuation late Tuesday of the Edgewater apartments, a 108-unit affordable housing high-rise operated by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency occupied by seniors, in the 600 block of I Street.
Residents were allowed to return to Edgewater on Wednesday afternoon.
A Sacramento Bee review of SMUD records and planning documents found the substation that caught fire was “nearing the end of useful life” as of 2015.
The cause of the fire remains unknown.
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 10:02 AM.
