Local market owner, MidAmerican in negotiations after power outage - DesMoinesRegister.com
Merlyn Linn, the 77-year-old owner of Linn's Super Market on 6th Avenue in Des Moines, thought for the past four months that he may have to close down his store of more than 60 years because of an electrical problem the store encountered. MidAmerican Energy had performed a planned outage repair, and shut power off at about 1 a. m. , but Linn's store's power didn't return, he said. "When we got to work at 7 in the morning, everything in the store was dead," he said. He said he wasn't quite sure what went wrong, possibly a short circuit, but nothing in the store worked the next morning: freezers, refrigerators, lights and cash registers were all down. He has to replace both cash registers, as they were on one system, and that alone will cost him about $14,000. About 15 of his 21 freezer doors still don't work. At first, MidAmerican Energy told Linn the company wasn't responsible, so they wouldn't help pay. "Well, you know when you're tied up with something since you were 15 years old, it's just like family to me," Linn said. He met with MidAmerican on Monday afternoon and he said the company is now negotiating with him and could pay up to 95 percent of the costs. "Now the case looks like we can (go) on for a while if we get this taken care of. ". MidAmerican's Ruth Comer said she can't confirm the exact negotiation as it is private communication between the company and the customer, but said the company is... Source: www.desmoinesregister.com
