Businesses grapple with extended power outages after Friday storms

DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) — As first responders work to clean up debris and restore power following Friday’s storms, business owners in the Miami Valley are amongst many navigating the impact.

Small businesses in the restaurant industry particularly, like Hank’s Local, are anxious to see the lights turn back on.

“It’s very crippling. We have to throw away all our food. We have to work out an arrangement to compensate our employees, but we’re gonna have to make a lot of compromises,” said Chris Shay, owner of Hank’s Local. “We need every dollar and penny we can get to take care of our customers and take care of our employees.”

AES and local officials have worked tirelessly to restore power to customers throughout the Miami Valley, downing the initial 120,000 outages from Friday.

Andrew Jacobs, regional manager of AES, Metro Line Operations, says that power is expected to be restored by Tuesday.

Jacobs spoke on behalf of AES, saying that the company understands the frustration that residents and business owners are feeling.

As of this writing, there are a bit over 13,000 AES customers without power, which is less than the nearly 20,000 from Sunday.

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