An unexpected power outage closed the Santa Maria Town Center mall on Friday.
“What?! No! Why?" said Santa Maria resident, Sarah Cale.
That was the response from many potential Santa Maria Town Center mall customers Friday as they were stopped by a sign at the mall entrance indicating the closure.
“We are planning to spend a little bit of time here today, but we come and bummer, there’s a sign there that says the mall is closed," said Ruben Lozano Fuentes, an Oceano resident.
Customers weren’t the only ones surprised by the closure. Small businesses were also affected.
“I found out when I got to work today at 7 a.m. and we all just got together and said, how can we make this work?" said Brooke Martin, who works for Gina's Piece of Cake.
Gina’s Piece of Cake is one of the few businesses that had power and had to get creative, bringing out the tent and curbside pickup sign - the same resources they used during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Unfortunately, given that it's Friday, that’s a really big production day for us and a lot of orders go out, so we have to make it work for our customers. We don’t want to call them and let them know we can’t do their cake," said Martin.
Other businesses were also impacted, like Nancy's Flowers.
“I took advantage that my neighbor Gina’s Cake took out her tent and I asked her, can you do me favor and let me use part of your tent? And she told me yes," said Laura Madrigal in Spanish.
Madrigal says she has an event Saturday and was planning on working on her flower arrangements Friday, but instead, she said she’ll have to start around 7 a.m. to make up for the lost time.
In a statement, mall officials said, “According to PG&E, two transformers went out and they are working on it. Power is expected to be back late this afternoon. We will reopen tomorrow April 9.”
PG&E responded to KSBY with a statement and said, "The Santa Maria Town Center is experiencing an unplanned outage, and PG&E’s investigation has determined that the cause of the power outage is due to equipment failure. We have crews on-site working to safely restore power as quickly as possible."
PG&E's online outage map shows the outage began Thursday night around eight and power was expected to be restored by Friday evening. For the latest update on the power outage, visit the PG&E website.
