Beldt's hit hard by power failure

[rottielover]

I live down the street from beldt's, and our area was out of power for nearly 8 days, we only got it back breifly around that first thursday for maybe 8 hours before the next batch of storms knocked us all out again for another 7 days.

Trust me it was a total struggle to keep my 2 tanks going on a generator, I had to take vacation days from work, and spent a ton of money keeping things alive. And that is only two tanks!

Even IF they could have secured a very LARGE diesel generator, I doubt it could have been hooked into the building since they are in a "strip mall" type setting. The Quick Trip's in my area were running on very LARGE generators, but that's because they have thier own seperate buildings, and I belive when built they were pre-rigged for just such an event. Even the supermarkets in my area were running on backup batteres and generators, and that was just enough for about 1/4 of the lights and a few of the cash registers to run...

 

[chadscamaro]

Actually , it was a lot easier than I thought. Just took amerens wires out of the top of the breaker box then insert cable and wires from generator and good to go ! They have their own panel or 2 and the generator hooks in there. Hopefully we dont ever have to go threw that mess again,but I can tell you one thing generator sales in St. Louis are going threw the roof !!

 

[zt444a]

I was in Beldts Monday or Tuesday. I did see plenty of empty tanks, but they are getting back up to speed as quickly as they can.

People should be reasonable on this issue of giving/selling stuff at discounts vs. letting it die off. They did not make a choice to just let things crash. Who does?!? When all of the folks you know are also without power, what do you do?

As it is I have been lucky enough both times and did not lose power at all. I would have been happy to put my name down on a list of people who would keep corals in the event of a power failure. I would be glad to return them after power came back on. It helps all of us to lend some assistance when we can...

Howie

 

[Turf]

My middle name should be lucky, I only lost power for about 7hrs.

 

[dynamitedj]

You guys all make a good point but it's a little hard to feel sorry for people who lost livestock and had the opportunity to get help. I personally offered help to people and somehow no one needed it. But then over the course the next week I kept reading about all these losses. I'm guessing that they didn't have the opportunity to see my post. I'm not jumping on the bandwagon though, I feelin sorry for the animals that got cooked. Say what you will.

 

[dynamitedj]

As a business owner I am prepared for the possible problems that could arise in what I do. You would think that if you owned a livestock business that completely relies on electricity to stay alive it might have occured to you to have a generator capable of life-support. I'm sure that they have it all figured out now that they have learned the lesson. Alot of this could have been avoided. Previous to this event I thought thay had a plan. For those of you who think I'm "ignorant or harsh" I have this to say. I offered help in any form and I had a backup plan. If these businesses are getting the money back for the lost life then they aren't lossing anything it would seem as if they are actually making a profit. If you were really concerned about the animals (that support this hobby) you would push for requirements that would keep this from happening and not defend people for dropping the ball. What if hundreds of dogs and cats had died for the same reason whould you have been so quick to defend the stores then? I don't deserve this ridicule for defending the animals! Maybe, I don't share everyones one-sided point of view. Maybe I'm presumptive to think that more could have been done. Keep this in mind I'm not the one with the "Itchy trigger finger".

 

[chadscamaro]

One thing I want to say is that the extreme heat was a major factor in this and I was prepared with a generator,but the heat was so bad that I had to get a large one to run the whole store to be able to run the a/c to cool the tanks down. Had this happened almost any other time, all you need is pumps running.
But with the 100 deg. temp the tanks just got hot quick, so with no a/c it was a lossing battle and I am sure that was the problem with them as well. They didnt have a big enough generator to run the whole store, so no a/c . Its a tough deal for everyone,but definately a lesson learned and hopefully not repeated.

 

[Shooter7]

Wow, looks like I'm being pointed at here with this one. So be it. What people are saying here is that yes, it is bad that so much life was lost and, in an ideal world, there would be a full backup plan to cover each and every form of disaster that could float one's way. But, as I pointed out, there are more factors involved with this situation. Not only was this store affected, but so were the personal lives of the owners. They had to decide their priorities between the store and their families. Additionally, any efforts which were then able to be directed towards their store was hampered by massive area power outages and damage to infrastructure. I have asked the question about the idea of a generator directly and my understanding on this topic is that these guys have owned this business, what, less than a year? They have poured large quantities of money into refurbishing what they got and have been trying to provide even more selection with coral tanks. As I understand it, a huge generator to be able to power this place like it needed to have for that extent of time just has not been within their budget. These guys didn't want to stand back and watch their livelihood or the things they care about be damaged and, as I understand it, they did manage to do a pretty good job of minimizing casualties to their freshwater stock. But sometimes things happen. There are local people who lost alot of stuff in their tanks because of this even though they tried the best they could with the means they had at their disposal, does this mean we should form lynch mobs to go after them too because they didn't have a sufficient backup plan? I lost a couple of my corals so far, am I at least guilty of a lesser charge and deserve a good spiking by my foxface? And as far as insurance goes, they are going to get back some of what they originally paid for their livestock, not what they would have gotten selling them, so no gain there. And while they are low on stock, they're losing out on any money they would have made if they had their full stock available. They are not coming out ahead on this. Geez, if you've got that much of an issue with them, just don't go there....or keep digging this hole you've started, whatever suits you. :rolleye1:

 

[dynamitedj]

Now I'm a lynch mob.

 

[dynamitedj]

For the record... Chad, I think you did an excellent job. For what it's worth.

 

[chadscamaro]

Thanks and It was a tough time,but hopefully doesnt happen again anytime soon !

 

[partymarty]

WOW!!!!! where do I start.. I think it was thursday when the power came back on and we were experiencing a fairly large power surge, two pumps caught on fire one of our main lights blew up and our a/c unit went out. im sure some of you have been in the store and felt how hot it is when we had three units running, i guess you can imagine how hot it is with only two. We did make alot of calls on friday to get help moving the animals and to get them to an aquarium w/ power. we saved some but most of the people that we called had no power. There also was some people that came by on the weekend and offered to help. But by that time most of the fish that were left had ick, so giving that fish away could have then created a big problem to someones aquarium. and thats a risk that i didnt want to take. so if you want to call that a business decision, being selfish, or enhumane. fine.If there is anyone that has questions about all of this you can stop by the store any day but friday and you can talk to me, or give me a call. I do appericate all of the support by everyone. I just wish that people had all the facts before they started to ridicule us for what happened.

 

[Shooter7]

[welcome]

Marty

:thumbsup:

 

[Fade]

I dont blame you guys you do what you can and hope for the best. It is hard to run a LFS and you have to make calls on alot of stuff that the normal reefer dosnt even think about. And what it takes to run a LFS on a normal day much less in a time like Belts had. When you get back up and running Im sure you will get alot of support.

 

[Reefer Wannabe]

I think most of us on here understand that you did the best that you can do.

:thumbsup:

 

[JxMetal]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7873649#post7873649 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Turf
My middle name should be lucky, I only lost power for about 7hrs.

MINE should be lucky! I live down the street from you and never lost power! Now that's lucky. We went right down the middle of the two storms. Huge one to the east, huge one to the west. We were right between them in the weakest part of it.