Pinwheel Bakery Opens After 5 Days Due to Outage, Still Isn't Fully Stocked

When the power went out about   affecting the north side of West Nine Mile Road including , owner Ann St. Peter didn't think much of it. She's used to the power going out.

"It always goes out on this side of Nine Mile," she said Thursday afternoon. "As a business owner, I was panicked, but I wasn't super panicked."

St. Peter, also a Ferndale resident who was also without power at home, said that last summer the north side of West Nine Mile lost power for two days when a branch fell on a wire, cutting out the whole block.

And during the four years Pinwheel Bakery has been in downtown Ferndale, St. Peter said the power has gone out "many, many times."

"Honestly, I didn't expect it to go on as long as it did," she said. "I knew it was hot. I was thinking about closing up on Thursday anyway because of the heat. I probably would have paid more in air condition than I made in sales."

But, the power stayed out on that side of Nine Mile through Thursday, Friday and up until about 6 a.m. Saturday morning.

The outage killed the cakes

DTE Energy said the excessive heat – temperatures were in the 90s that week and hit 100 degrees in some areas on Thursday – caused one of the two transformers to blow Wednesday at the West Nine Mile Road and Dover substation. .

by transferring the load from the failing transformer to the working one. DTE also started "," shutting off the power for one area for two hours while turning on power in another for two hours. DTE said that it only "rotated" services in two areas.

Due to the extra stress on that transformer, DTE said, the cable carrying the voltage into the substation malfunctioned, .

"On Friday, I was worried," she said. "I knew I was going to lose everything."

As Friday, July 22, came, DTE brought in . However, it became clear to DTE that the only way to restore power was to shut down the substation, cutting power to about 6,000 residents. .

After 2 1/2 days of ebbing and flowing outages in Ferndale, the power was fully restored about 6 a.m. Saturday morning.

Melted, spoiled and lost

By that time, however, St. Peter's stock was gone. With the exception of a few of the more expensive baking ingredients – the vegan cookie dough, for example – that she stored in the walk-in freezer at that the owners allowed her to use, everything spoiled or melted.

"Everything in the freezer, everything we made, all the orders, had to be canceled," she said.

St. Peter said she hasn't really started to add everything up but she estimates around $4,000 or $5,000 just in inventory. On top of that, she said, there were four days of lost wages to her employees plus five days of lost business (Pinwheel is closed Mondays).

"It's really hard to quantify at this time, but it's still a huge chunk of business," she said. "Or the people who called to place orders who didn't know what was going on?"

St. Peter has spoilage insurance up to $10,000 with a $500 deductable. She said should be able to recoup the costs for the spoilage but the loss of business and wages of her employees will have to be absorbed.

Losing five days of business and her entire inventory will be difficult to overcome for a small business like Pinwheel. As of Thursday, St. Peter said she's still not at 100 percent. "We're still not where we really need to be," she said. "I'll have to start making choices, fill the orders or make sure there are macaroons in the case."

Losing power, losing patience

There was also disappointment in the energy provider, DTE.

"We were told different things," she said. "Was there a rolling black out? Wasn't there? Each day (of the blackout) we were told it would be on between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m."

St. Peter doesn't understand why Phoenix, AZ, can have 117-degree weather and that city's grid doesn't go out, but Ferndale has 90-degree weather and there is a 2 1/2-day blackout. "Is our infrastructure really that compromised? If it is, we're in trouble," she said.

She said if "rolling blackouts," which DTE refers to as rotating services, took place, why couldn't they have rotated services for the businesses along West Nine Mile? "If they truly were rolling blackouts and businesses were getting power, I would have not lost everything," she said.

An interesting twist to the entire situation was that St. Peter said she received a call from DTE asking her how her service was. This call came during the blackout.

"DTE asked if we were satisfied and I said, no we weren't, we don't have power," St. Peter said she told the person on the other line. "The woman asked if I wanted to speak with a supervisor. I got a call 24 hours later from that supervisor. ... Talking to him was like talking to my 12-year-old son."

St. Peter said the supervisor told her that Ferndale was experiencing "rolling blackouts" and that the power would be restored between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m.

St. Peter hopes to get as much back from the insurance company as she can. Five days' of business lost, thousands of dollars in inventory was lost and, it appears, at least for the time being, her patience for DTE has spoiled.

But, DTE does offer a $25 credit if you experience a prolonged outage. A customer has to file a claim through the DTE website, it is then reviewed. St. Peter said her household would be filing.

"My husband will file. He'll want to get every penny back from them as he can," she said.