SACRAMENTO, Calif. — It was a long night for residents at Ping Yuen Senior Living Apartments. While some were able to leave or be picked up ahead of the cold night without power, 67 people stayed overnight without heat, including second floor resident Jeannette Prince.
“You don’t expect this to happen anywhere, but especially here,” Prince said. “We’re in our walkers and no elevator-- I had to drag my chair down the stairs.”
SMUD, the city of Sacramento and Red cross have since collaborated with management at the apartment building to evacuate the remaining residents to the Sacramento Double Tree hotel.
According to a SMUD spokesperson, anyone put up in a hotel was to also able to get food accommodations.
Tina Sayavong, the owner of Thai Lotus restaurant located next door to the apartments, had to close her restaurant during their lunch hour when her power went out. She said their food is most likely spoiled by now.
"What can we do? There’s nothing we can do, just sit around and wait," she said.
Sayavong said between the pandemic and staffing shortages, the outage added insult to injury for her and her employees.
“If this continues, we don’t know what to do,” she said. “Bills are stacking up with no business, every day we lose money for our rent, for our employees. It’s like we’re unemployed.”
SMUD says some people might have to go another day without power as they expect all customers to have power restored by Friday morning.
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