Power Outage Takes Bite Out Of Business Faulty Insulator Cuts Downtown Electricity For Almost Five Hours

Janice Rea was cooking breakfast burritos at the Chevron Food Mart in downtown Spokane when the power went out Thursday morning.

“Needless to say, they didn’t get done,” Rea said from the darkened convenience store at Third and Monroe.

She wasn’t the only one to have her work interrupted by the outage, which hit a 27-square-block area between Maple and Post, Second and Fourth.

A faulty insulator on a power pole near Third and Stevens started a chain reaction, said Pat Lynch of Washington Water Power Co.

At least six overhead wires shorted out just after 7 a.m., Lynch said. “It took out a fairly large chunk.”

Power was out until just before noon.

The outage ruined the breakfast business for many of the fast-food restaurants in the area.

People looking for a quick bite at Taco Bell at Third and Lincoln found the usually busy drive-through lane empty.

As they whipped up to the window, they also discovered a sign: “Closed Due to Power Failure.”

As WWP crews scrambled to restore electricity, people who live and work in the area did what they could to make the best of the situation.

City crews used generators to keep most traffic signals working.

Taco Bell managers had workers give the restaurant a good scrubbing.

At Chevron, Rea and her fellow employees sold candy bars and cold bottled soft drinks to people wanting to buy hot coffee and burritos.

With their computerized cash registers useless, they recorded transactions with pen and paper - “the old-fashioned way,” Rea said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map of outage area