MARANA, Ariz. (KGUN) — Power was out, freezers were off and a local Marana business was left worried about their inventory after just reopening this past week.
After taking a several-year break from running their ice cream truck, Sweet Sensations and Ice Cream, Corinne Kushel and her daughter Jamie Steiner had recently gotten it up and running again. They were two of about 7,000 impacted by a Trico power outage in Marana just after 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
“This is my business and this is what we do as our livelihood – we can’t do it without ice cream,” Kushel said.
When not out, the truck relies on power from their house.
According to Trico CEO and General Manager Brian Heithoff, they lost power because of an equipment failure that occurred in between where overhead and underground facilities intersect.
“And that trip, or failure, then cascaded back to a substation and resulted in the whole substation being tripped out,” he said.
Heithoff said they are still trying to figure out what exactly caused the failure.
“We have an after-action review scheduled and we’ll be talking to some of our line crews, dispatchers, system operators and also substation techs,” he explained. “The initial diagnosis appears to be a programming issue with the equipment.”
While waiting for power to be restored, the mom and daughter duo bought dry ice to try to save their product.
“Anybody that has a food business that stores their product at their home in freezers or in their refrigerators has to be freaking out when we lose power,” Kushel said.
According to Trico, power was restored within two and a half hours to about 6,000 members. The approximately 1,000 remaining had it restored in the hours after.
Now, Kushel and Steiner are sorting through their product, hoping they can save it all.
The Town of Marana made the Marana Aquatic and Recreation Center available to those impacted by the outage. Heithoff said Trico will provide ice and shelter in the case of an extended outage.
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Madison Thomas joined KGUN 9 in July of 2023 as a multimedia journalist. She graduated from Arizona State University in May of 2023 with a degree in journalism and mass communication. She has lived in Arizona her entire life and grew up in Douglas. Madison is thrilled to share the stories from the community she grew up in. Share your story ideas and important issues with Madison by emailing madison.thomas@kgun9.com or by connecting on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.
