Many businesses are still counting their losses after Wednesday’s 12-hour power outage which left all of Trinidad in darkness.
The losses at this time cannot be quantified but those business owners affected said their services and goods were grossly affected due to early closures.
With power returning to most businesses, those who were willing to share their concerns with Guardian Media spoke about their experience.
Funeral Director of Saint Rose Funeral Home Nicholas Saint Rose described Wednesday as a disaster.
He said, “Well right now, I am traumatised, I had dead bodies here that I could not have embalmed and I would say that in 2022 we should not have to be dealing with a situation like this and as a funeral director the whole situation made me feel hurt and due to Wednesday blackout, we moved more bodies than any other day today (Thursday) and this was all attributed to no power. People on ventilators and other devices were affected and unfortunately persons died and some had difficulty with their breathing apparatus and devices.”
He believes the outage was unfortunate to the many businesses and citizens across the country.
Saint Rose noted that larger businesses had generators and they were the lucky ones but the rest of the country was faced with this disadvantage.
“This is wrong, is totally wrong and we need to do something in this country,” he said.
Supermarket owners, who spoke to Guardian Media, said the loss was not great as many frozen items were defrosted.
They said the loss of power can truly bring major concerns for the businesses community.
Ali Baba Poultry, in El Socorro, said the outlet closed early and systems were put in place not to lose thousands of dollars in meat.
Manager Sherida Rajkumar told Guardian Media, “When the power went, sales started to drop and we decided to close our doors. We do not have a generator or anything like that, we had to buy ice and ice up all our meat in the freezer and keep them closed and we hoped that the power came back because we would have lost everything.”
Some other poultry shops were not so lucky as they lost produce, even dairy farmers were affected as their milk storage was affected.
As the days go by, the amount of losses will be quantified.
