FW: A little trouble in Lowell today -

[Gary's Ice Cream]

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary's Ice Cream [mailto:gary@garysicecream.com] 
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 8:21 PM
To: 'gary@garysicecream.com'
Subject: A little trouble in Lowell today - 

What started out to be a nice summer Sunday at Gary's Ice Cream in Lowell
turned into a catastrophe shortly after 1pm when I got a call in my
Chelmsford office that a tree had crashed down on top of our Lowell store
knocking out the power and starting a small electrical fire on the back of
the building.

I made the trip there in less than 7 minutes to find our electrical service,
meter socket, etc had been sheared from the building by the force of the
tree which was laying 30 feet across our roof.   

We had stocked the huge walk-in freezer at that store over the past week
with about 300 3-gal tubs of ice cream getting ready for the 4th of July
weekend (a very busy one at that riverside location due to the 4th of July
fireworks).  We moved as much to our Chelmsford store as we could fit
(Chelmsfords walk-in is much smaller) but had to say goodbye to all the 64
tubs that were in the dipping cabinets (and many full tubs from the
walk-in).  

One of the Boston TV stations came out (they were there before I got there)
and then they sent out a satellite truck to do a "Live Shot" as the top
story on the 6 o'clock news.....

I hated to throw away all 64 tubs (about $5,000 at retail) so......I gulped
back and had one of the staff stand out front on the busy street with a sign
that was hastily lettered on a cardboard box that said "FREE ICE CREAM".
Between 2 and 6:30 we gave away all 200 gallons or so as it got softer and
softer until it was "ice cream soup".....cups only thank you...

All in all between...payroll.....paper and spoons and the ice cream....a
loss of well over $8,000..........

As I write this the tree people are working to cut the tree down and get it
off the roof - so the electricians can come in tomorrow and rebuild the
service entrance to the building.........they say the power should be back
late tomorrow night or sometime on Tuesday - then 24 hours or so for the
freezers to all stabilize to temperature......then restock the whole store
with ice cream and dairy.....and a complete tear-down and cleaning of the
soft serve machine (can't do that til the power is back)....

And how was your Sunday?

By the way, to those that say "Why don't you have a generator?"   We looked
into that many times - but with 400amp - 3 phase service......you're looking
at at $40,000 investment.

Gary
www.garysicecream.com

Gary's Ice Cream
Lowell and Chelmsford, Mass.

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