Sydney Selvon
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 18/06) - Businesses around town are quite unhappy with the weekend power outages, some of them incurring substantial losses.

The consequences of the outage on Saturday were significant for L'Heritage restaurant, which had to shut down for most of the day and re-open at 4 p.m. L'Heritage manager Abraxas Perdomo was quite upset by what happened.

"The effects were considerable and we lost a lot. It was also a power outage that lasted too long. That should not happen again."

Power went out for at least two hours on Saturday and almost as long on Sunday. Yellowknife relied on diesel backup generators at Jackfish power plant for much of the weekend and businesses and homeowners were asked to conserve electricity.

Even for one business that gets more business because of any power outage, for Tamarack Computers, the additional sales of backup computer power supplies does not lead company vice-president Tony Smith to rejoice.

"We sold that day more of the UPS equipment that help protect computers," he said.

"People came in to buy the most basic equipment, priced from $60 to $70, which only gives them enough time to have a clean shutdown, but not the kind of advanced protection that come with equipment worth thousands of dollars and which most people can't afford," Smith said.

"Still, we don't like power outages. We don't gain much from those few additional sales. In spite of our own extra protective measures, there is still considerable risk of damage to our own equipment. Everybody is at risk."

Beauty salons lost a lot of business with Saturday's outage. Some lost business on Sunday, too. Ashley Forester, who works at Essentials professional hair care salon, had a customer's hair curling process stopped right in the middle. "That lasted very long. Another customer waited for over one hour for power to come back to undergo hair care she was in need of."

At the D'Orient Spa, Lacey Krivda said the business, which is open Saturday and Sunday, suffered a long interruption. Lee Proud, who owns Flowers North, was seriously affected because her business is in a basement.

"It was completely dark after the power went out Saturday. We had to use candles. This is really discouraging for the business community," she said. In the groceries sector, the Yellowknife Direct Charge Co-op was well prepared to face the outage. General manager Ben Walker said it has a generator that automatically switches on when power is interrupted. Saturday afternoon, shoppers had to wander through darkened aisles as the Co-op turned off most of its lights to reduce its electricity demand.