OLIVET, MI (WSYM) - — More than 1,300 Consumers Energy customers don’t have power in Olivet, one of the areas hardest hit by Wednesday’s storms.
One of those customers, Whitetail Farms’ owner Greg Saltzman, said it’s been a rough 24 hours for the store.
Saltzman and his staff spent from about 8 p.m. Wednesday until 3 a.m. Thursday loading their meats and cheeses into a truck that will help keep them fresh.
"I turned around and came back at 6 this morning, started making phone calls to the insurance companies,” Saltzman said.
Saltzman made another attempt to salvage what was left Thursday.
"I didn't want to have to pull my frozen (products) today,” Saltzman said. “It just got to the point where I had to make a decision."
Saltzman said he doesn’t want to lose the product Whitetail Farms makes best.
"We make around 1,200 pounds of brats per week,” Saltzman said. “We just got done with Memorial Day, and we were just gearing up for 4th of July."
It was the last thing Saltzman wanted to do today.
"It's always a setback,” Saltzman said. “We'll survive it. Hopefully, it won't take too long to put it back together."
Thanks to Saltzman’s more than 40 years of work in the meat business, though, today’s was a successful operation.
"It goes a lot smoother,” Saltzman said. “You can guide your people with what has to be done. It worked out pretty good today."
Saltzman said there is a small bit of meat that they know they won’t be able to sell. He said they’ll donate what good meat they have left to food banks.
Consumers Energy expects to have power back in the Olivet area Friday morning. Some customers in Jackson don’t have estimated restoration times.
Consumers Energy's outage map, and some estimated repair times, can be found at www.consumersenergy.com/outagemap.
