CLEVELAND — More than 48 hours in the dark, lost revenue, lost product, and lost opportunity — and Cleveland Public Power says it generally will not compensate in situations like this.
Owner of Sacred Vortex Tea House and Kombuchery David Kovatch said his business lost power on July 3 around 8:30 p.m.
"We have a movie night every other week and do a double feature. It was like 20 minutes into the movie, and power cut out and didn't come back on until Sunday night," Kovatch said. "We had a big cookout planned and like a lot of different activities and, yeah, it was all just put on hold. Luckily, we were able to take a lot of the food home and get it in the refrigerator at our houses."
Sadly, not everything could be saved.
Kovatch said they lost roughly $2,500 worth of product.
"All of our teas are organic, and there's no preservatives in them, so they need to be kept cold. If they don't, they start to ferment. We use all-natural fruit purees in all of our drinks to flavor them, and all of those fruit purees went bad, too. Started to ferment, and I had to throw all that stuff away as well," he said.
Kovatch said he has a lot of replacement inventory coming in this week, so he feels fortunate overall.
Not everyone on Lorain Avenue experienced that same good luck, though.
"Real Smoq'ed Barbecue lost 800 pounds of meat that they had prepared for the holiday weekend. It's just devastating," Kovatch told us.
I reached out to Real Smoq'ed Barbecue via social media. I was told enough meat to feed 50 adult lions had to be tossed.
"What a waste," Real Smoq'ed Barbecue responded.
About a block away sits Proof Public House, a newly opened restaurant owned and operated by Matt Fish.
Fish said Proof Public House lost power roughly an hour prior to the tea house.
"It was pretty devastating, to be honest with you, you know, we had just opened up. We are finishing the end of our third week, going into our fourth week, getting some good momentum with business. The neighborhood was starting to embrace us. People were starting to come in and find us, which is great. We're starting to see increases to all of our days in business. That Friday, the third, was actually the busiest day we were having up until the power outage, and then, you know, very disheartening when the power goes out, not knowing exactly when it's gonna come back on," Fish said.
Fish said his coolers were offline for a total of 50 hours, causing him to "lose everything."
"We're talking about thousands and thousands of dollars worth of food that we had to throw out on top of the lost revenue that we had for, you know, well over a day and a half," Fish said.
Fish said he had to call in favors that weekend to secure food for when the power would eventually come back on.
"We had to drive around the city, we had to go to the West Side Market, we had to go to all of our food purveyors," Fish said. "I had to walk up the street and borrow product from different restaurants that were here that did have power. We were just able to scramble enough to get some product in that we could create our core recipes because everything we make here is from scratch."
By the afternoon of July 6, Proof Public House was able to serve food again.
"So a lot of people on social media, especially, were talking about it like, 'Hey, go support these restaurants, go support these people because they lost a lot of product and revenue over the last two and a half, three days.' We saw a lot of community support on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday through last week. We ended up having a very good week, and I'm hoping that we continue this momentum forward," Fish said.
The mind-boggling aspect of all this is how there could be no power for longer than 48 hours. The businesses impacted want to know, and so do we.
I reached out to Cleveland Public Power for an explanation.
We know how disruptive these outages were for businesses along the Lorain Avenue corridor, especially during a holiday weekend, and we recognize the frustration that comes with an extended loss of power.
The outages affecting portions of the Lorain Avenue corridor were caused by storm-related damage following an extended period of extreme heat that had already placed significant strain on the electric system. The combination of sustained high temperatures and the evening storms on July 3 resulted in multiple outages across the city, including in this area.
With the thousands of dollars lost in revenue and product, I also asked Cleveland Public Power if there would be potential compensation.
"Regarding compensation, these outages resulted from weather-related impacts to the system. While we understand the challenges these interruptions created for residents and businesses, claims associated with events of this nature generally are not eligible for payment through the City’s claims process," a Cleveland Public Power spokesperson said. "What we can provide are outage verification letters upon request. Businesses and residents may submit these letters to their private insurance carriers if they choose to explore whether coverage is available through their own policies."
Fish said, "I know that they're doing the best they can. Could they improve? Sure. Could we all improve? Sure. Could the infrastructure be improved? Sure. I'm not here to kick CPP, you know, I just wish that all the infrastructure of Cleveland, whether it's CPP or the Illuminating Company, you know, I wish it could all get better for us."
Fish said it is disheartening to hear that CPP does not generally compensate in situations like this.
"I know there were multiple factors, and for them to just sit back and say it was only weather-related, I think, is a little false. It was a pretty massive outage, you know, so it wasn't isolated; it wasn't just a rolling blackout. It's very disheartening to hear that CPP, you know, doesn't really care about their customers as much as they probably should," Fish said.
Fish said there's no true way to prepare for next time. He hopes there won't be one.
As for Kovatch, he said buying an expensive generator isn't in the budget, so keeping more of an eye on inventory is how he will move forward.
"A simple power outage shouldn't last 48 hours. I've traveled pretty extensively, and I've been to third-world countries that have better infrastructure than we do here in Cleveland," Kovatch said. "I would just like to see a solid plan being worked on and potentially instituted."
Kovatch said he has been in touch with his councilperson, who told him a master plan to upgrade infrastructure is now being discussed.
"You can't just keep Band-Aiding things until the next time the wind blows. Nobody can run that way," Kovatch said.
There will be a town hall on Tuesday, July 21, at 6 p.m. at the Urban Community School to discuss the recent outages. It'll feature interim chief of operations Martin Keene and CPP Commissioner Ammon Danielson.
CPP leadership is expected to discuss what happened and what comes next.
