THAT’S BUSINESS

Cave dwellers in search of milk, bread, light and warmth

— The frozen, oversize privet had collapsed on the power line like a mastodon caught in a sudden epochal climate shift.

In a nearby tree, a male cardinal pip-pipped at the poor humans reduced to mere survival.

We became cave dwellers. Sunlight was especially precious just after the solstice. During the long, cold nights, we lived among flickering images and shadows.

We rediscovered fire.

That was my family’s life for four days after the Blizzard of 2012. For others, it was longer,and colder.

Alternate power sources were limited. The batteries we had were few, some of those useless. A neighbor had a generator that he’d been meaning to get fixed.

Oddly enough, it seems, not all grocery stores have generators. More on that later.

For us, it was candles, flashlights and fireplaces starting at 2:45 p.m. Christmas Day.

We moved our refrigerated perishables to ice chests that we planted in a drift at the back door and packed with snow. We hoped our freezer section would hold out.

I placed overturned deck chairs on the chests to discourage raccoons with their humanlike paws.

Our house happens to be on a small electric circuit with four other houses.Even if there’s not much of a storm, our little circuit loses power. We can just about count on it. And I initially thought that’s what happened this time.

Yet the breadth of the snowstorm that arrived overnight restored my perspective.

I began to sense the pain of others far beyond our cul-de sac. As the Good Book asks: Who is my neighbor?

Our short street is on a hill that’s deceptively difficult when it takes on snow and ice. We couldn’t get away for supplies for two days.

This was our Christmas for smart phones, which provided us with some news from the outside world.

This newspaper gave us the big and local picture, and the crossword puzzle, a comfort in our restricted existence. It also gave us a nice fire starter. Try that with your Kindle.

Finally, we made it up the hill and to a grocery store in another neighborhood. Ours, the Kroger in Colony West, was shut down.

Of all places, why wouldn’t a grocery have emergency power?

Because it’s not feasible, said Joe Bell, manager of marketing and planning for Kroger’s five state Delta division.

It would take a “monstrous” generator, the size of a tractor trailer rig, to run a store for an extended period, including refrigerated sections and freezers.

Kroger stores do have emergency power systems, but they provide only enough electricity to run the lights and cash registers, Bell said.

A 100 percent contingency plan won’t work. “You can’t afford to be ready for everything. ... It’s a percentage game. If you ran a store that was prepared for every contingency, you’d have a store that was so expensive you just couldn’t run it.”

Simply put, it’s cheaper to pitch the food.

“Any large corporation is going to prepare for the things that you know are the most likely to happen,” Bell said.

The company has 34 stores and at a various times six to 11 were closed, he said. Three stores were dark for about two days; the others opened sooner, according to Joe Jeruzal of Kroger.

In grocery market share, Wal-Mart leads the state, including Little Rock, followed by Kroger.

In recent years, Wal-Mart has made a name for itself during emergencies. Its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi outshone governmental efforts.

In Arkansas, the winter storm shut down 19 of 86 Wal-Mart stores and seven Sam’s Clubs, according to spokesman Dianna Gee. All were open by Dec. 27, three on generators, Gee said.

Wal-Mart also does not use on-site generators to keep stores fully operational, but routes them where needed from its emergency centers and sometimes rents them, she said.

Gee said she is “proud of our associates” who voluntarily came in Christmas to prepare for the storm even though the stores are closed on that holiday.

Men in white hard hats were the heroes of the day. Crews working on lines or just doing preliminary investigation of neighborhoods drew attention.

An Entergy Corp. truck pulled up in front of our house, and I didn’t make myself scarce. I wanted to know the outlook.

The man had an accent. New Jersey maybe. Nope. Louisiana, part of Entergy’s service area.

It’s been a hard three days, I told him.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. Louisiana. Katrina. I get it.

Later some men with pole saws showed up. “Kin we get back there this way?” Mississippi.

On the fourth day, there was a rumble in our house. The lights on the darkened Christmas tree flickered. And stayed on.

“We got power! We got power!” my wife shouted.

Like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, I wanted to run through my neighborhood, celebrating all that I normally take for granted.

Hello, electricity! Hello, lights! Hello, 21st century!

If you have a tip, call Jack Weatherly at (501) 378-3518 or e-mail him at

[email protected]

Business, Pages 61 on 01/06/2013

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