Capel outage ruins store stock

About $80,000 of frozen goods was thrown away at Capel IGA this week after Sunday’s wild weather knocked out power for nearly two days.

The store’s manager, Dominic Palumbo, said while some of the stock was saved by moving it into a refrigerated truck, a big amount was thrown away.

‘‘Our freezer stock is mostly lost; the integrity of the stuff has broken down so we have to throw it away,’’ he said.

‘‘We were lucky and we saved a lot of the coolroom stock. We had a truck here we were able to transfer stock to.’’

The store lost power on Sunday afternoon when the South West bore the brunt of a strong cold front and power was not returned to the business until late Tuesday morning.

Unfortunately, Capel’s main grocery store was not equipped with a backup generator.

Mr Palumbo said the store still had plenty of food despite the losses. ‘‘There’s no panic, it’s a major inconvenience but we’re fine, we’ve still got plenty of stock so no-one’s going to go hungry,’’ he said.

‘‘There’s a few stores in the country struggling with the power, hopefully our warehouses will be fine.’’

He said he had contacted the store’s insurers which would sort out the cost of the lost stock.

Backup generators at most of the rest of the Bunbury region’s supermarkets and grocery stores kicked in and relieved the kind of problems experienced in Capel.

Business customers are able to apply for compensation from Western Power for loss of power and cases would be assessed within 10 working days, however, the utility’s website states damage from storms and falling trees was not eligible under its compensation offer.