“We think we might have lost quite a few thousand dollars if not more.” Country Club Market employee, Vivian Barker, told Redwood News.
The 6.4 earthquake off the coast of Petrolia has left an entire county without power and a small handful of businesses struggling to keep up with demand. Open gas stations are sparse and community members find themselves siphoning and conserving as much gas as possible.
Most grocery stores from Garberville all the way to Trinidad have remained closed and those that have stayed open do so with limited supply and resources.
The Winco in Eureka dimmed its own bright fluorescents to conserve generator power, greeting its many customers with the bizarre experience of dark shopping.
Los Bagels in Old Town has been known to stay open in the event of power outages and today was no different. The restaurant being one of the few still serving customers in the city.
“I wasn’t sure if we were gonna be open or not,” Quinn Ozaki-McNeill, the store’s manager, said. “Because based around the time that the earthquake hit, I wasn’t sure if all of our bakers were done or not.”
“I knew they were part of the way through their bake shift,” he explained. “But I wasn’t sure how much product we’d have to sell. The last few times we’ve had earthquakes, most places have been shut down, and we’ve been open anyway just slinging bulk bagels and stuff.”
Most businesses have been far from this lucky however. The Country Club Market located right across the street from the Redwood News Station received tremendous damages during the earthquake.
“Every single aisle was wrecked,” Barker said. “There were smashed glasses of jars of pickles and jalapenos, spices. There were glasses of wine taken out. A lot of booze was gone.
We lost about almost half of that, but we were able to salvage quite a bit of it.”
“For us we are lucky enough to have our owner have a gigantic generator,” she said. “So we’ve been powered all morning and been able to take care of some people and take care of our things with lights on. It’s been difficult, and we’ve all just kind of been like what happened, but we’re working with it.”
Further information on what grocery stores are open currently can be found on Redwood News official Facebook page.
