Service had been restored by 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, though a Kroger employee told the Journal-News they needed time to move frozen and refrigerated merchandise back to its shelving and to rest store systems to be operational later in the day.
The work to return the store to normal had some customers frustrated near Kroger’s main door.
Liberty Twp. resident Deborah Edwards said her home lost power last night and she was hoping to get some food from the store.
“And now I just got a call from my neighbor that her husband was out picking up roof shingles that blew off last night,” Edwards said.
Fellow, would-be Kroger customer and township resident Marion Wheeler said she suspected something was wrong when first pulling into the rarely empty store parking lot.
“I have to go somewhere else,” Wheeler said.
Many of the surrounding businesses, restaurants and banks near the Kroger at the Yankee and Cincinnati-Dayton Road intersection were also without power Tuesday morning.
Caroline McKinney, spokeswoman for Liberty Twp., said Tuesday’s clean up from the storm continued and she urged residents to call Duke Energy and not township officials to report power outages.
“Trees and limbs are down all over,” McKinney told the Journal-News.
To her knowledge, she said, no roadways were closed due to fallen trees or power lines.
Liberty Twp.’s government offices had power Tuesday morning, but a township services facility off Yankee Road did not.
Other area stores also close
At Jungle Jim’s International Market in Fairfield, Development Director Phill Adams said Tuesday morning they didn’t know how long the store would be closed, but added its inventory was “in good shape right now.”
“We reacted very, very quickly last night,” Adams said. “We saw it coming in. My daughter lives in Indianapolis and got the storm before us so it caught my attention. We watched it, and when it hit, the power went out. We all reacted.”
Winds reached up to 70 miles per hour during the system that affected the region. At 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, more than 20 percent of Butler County was still without power. Outages were happening at a time of high heat as well — it’s the first big heat wave of the season with temperatures climbing into the high 90s and feeling like they are in the 100s.
Every perishable item at Jungle Jim’s was removed from the floor displays and into walk-in coolers, and some product is in refrigerated tractor-trailers. They are using generators, but Adams said it was not sufficient to keep the store open for business.
“We’re good to go for now,” Adams said. “I don’t know how long we can go.”
Adams anticipated the power would be out “for quite a while.”
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