An extended power outage costs the convenience store thousands of dollars

” I’m sad. “

In an emotional moment, that’s all the lady behind the counter was able to express herself. His convenience store on Park Avenue, near Laurier Avenue, in the Mile-End, has been closed for four days. On Sunday, due to the warmer weather, it was open to customers who could pay with cash.

Soon it will be four full days since the building has no access to electricity. For the owner, who does not wish to be named for professional reasons, this breakdown is much more than an inconvenience.

“I ordered $1,000 worth of ice cream last week: I lost it all. In total, my losses amounted to $3,000,” she explains to duty Refers to the small freezer in which ice cream cones are usually stored.

It is now filled with bags of ice under which I buried frozen foods in the hope that they wouldn’t thaw. But it’s a waste of time: we see A Mr. Ice The orange that was runny and the frozen pasta dish is now fully soft.

All customers went to the next store. If they close for a few days, customers get used to somewhere else,” she says ruefully, saying she barely closed her business 15 years ago. “I work seven days a week.”

Since Wednesday evening, she has been unable to open her convenience store. “It was very cold the first few days. And I am very scared, because there are no cameras or alarms working anymore, and I am on my own all the time.”

His eldest daughter, meanwhile, arrives with some boiling water to heat up the instant noodles. “This store is the only source of income for my mom and her three kids,” she explains to duty.

The store owner is not mad at Hydro-Québec. “Everyone works so hard,” she says. However, times are tough. She can’t hold back a few tears when she talks about the exhaustion and stress she’s been experiencing since the start of the blackout, which has cost her work thousands of dollars.

crowded sidewalks

If, on Sunday afternoon, tens of thousands of Montrealers were still affected by the landslides, others have already relegated this episode to bad memory stage. On this sunny Sunday in April, many well-tempered pedestrians strolled the Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End neighborhoods, which had been hit hard by last week’s power outages.

“I lost electricity for about three days,” says Hashemi Kalil, who met in Laurier Park, which has become a graveyard of fallen tree branches during the blizzard. “My friends offered to rest me, but I preferred to stay at home. I had to go to the library to recharge my phone, ”explains a resident of Plateau Mont-Royal.

A little later, Amal Jaloul and Guillaume Trautmann are sipping coffee in the sun, sitting at a picnic table. They had recently arrived from France, and did not flinch in the face of this severe weather episode. “I lost electricity for 30 hours, but I found that there was a lot of mutual help,” Guillaume confirms, referring to the shelters offered to people who no longer have electricity.

“At first, I thought ice was normal here,” Amiel says amusedly. “I was told there was a lot of snow and extreme temperatures in Quebec. But at work on Wednesday, when my colleagues in Quebec started to panic, I realized this wasn’t normal,” she laughs.

Grocery stores open

Due to prolonged outages, grocery stores in six regions have been given the opportunity to open their doors despite the Easter holidays. “On Saturday, immediately after the minister’s announcement, I picked up the phone and asked the employees to come,” said a Metro grocery store manager who could not give his name, because he is not the official spokesperson for the channel.

“I felt a little bad. We only have five public holidays a year. And yet dozens of employees answered the call.” We didn’t run out of electricity, but the internet did. The following orders will be placed on Tuesday only and will arrive on Thursday. He fears that the shelves will be empty. “Because other nearby grocery stores are out of electricity, we have more customers and they are buying more.”

Mary Lawrence and Nicholas met up in the dairy aisle, and were without power for about 24 hours, but they didn’t lose any food. “We put the ice in the freezer and the freezer and everything stayed frozen,” they explain. The young couple agrees that it is important for grocery stores to open over the Easter weekend. “Our generation doesn’t really celebrate Easter, so it surprises me to see businesses closed,” says Mary Lawrence.

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