A powerful winter storm slammed the Central Coast — shattering windows, knocking out power, and leaving behind a trail of damage to local businesses.
“The window broke and the palm trees outside were swaying,” said Sanaz Rahimi, the Club 24 club coordinator. “We couldn’t keep our front door closed.”
Rahimi says that a large window at the gym was shattered by the strong gusts from Thursday’s storm that moved through the region.
It happened while people worked out at the gym and minutes after the window broke the power also went out.
“It got worse for maybe another 10, 15 minutes and I think that's when we were worried that, gosh, like what if another pane goes out?” said Rahimi. “We're trying to get all the customers to step away from the glass. ... Then the power went out.”
According to PG&E, a power outage affected more than 4,000 customers in San Luis Obispo, including areas along Foothill Boulevard before noon.
PG&E told KSBY News the outage was the result of a downed power line due to the storm.
A sense of fear grew for Jovany Martinez, the restaurant manager at Raku Ramen, due to the possibility of food going to waste during the outage.
“Due to health reasons where we had to shut all of our refrigerated items down and not open anything, so both we are in fear of losing our food during that time,” said Martinez. “We had to keep everything sealed and many people we had to turn away hungry.”
Martinez allowed his staff members to head home but as the electricity was later restored many came back to work.
“We waited around for one hour after the power went out, wondering like, 'Shall we go home?'” said Martinez. “Would this be fixed fast? We ended up sending everyone home to get a break, but only if it was safe, so some stuck around, but most went home, and shortly after they all came back after the power was restored.”
The power outage also affected local businesses, like SLO Barbers, in downtown San Luis Obispo.
The business's co-owner, Santino Cattaneo, says they had to reschedule their clients due to the loss of power.
“I'd say we were affected for like three or four hours,” said Cattaneo. “Our power went out and we kind of had to stop working. We had to call our clients and let them know that, you know, the power was out and we'd have to get them in another day. It was a little bit hurtful in the way that for business. But I mean, other than that, we kind of just tried to make do and, you know, there's not a lot you can do when Mother Nature comes in and takes [the] power out.”
