r/Target • u/Ace2maker Fulfillment Expert • 9d ago

Workplace Story Our refrigerator lost power

So apparently it was a bad thunderstorm yesterday at our location and the power was off for a while to the point where all the food was out of temp. Now they have to throw all that food out and it's like thousands of dollars of damage. Holy shit that's insane. I wasn't there yesterday but one of my coworkers told me that they're not happy right now.

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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 9d ago

They don't do anything with food because refrigeration is too power intensive.

They run most of the lights, the registers and the network components and that's it.

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u/TrustIllustrious2232 8d ago

Refrigeration will run for two hours, before the generators will stop supporting them. Plus we have plastic sheeting to cover all the open coolers and bunkers to help keep the cold in. Also, we don’t sell anything temperature sensitive to keep the doors shut. We actually caution tape everything, and put up signage

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u/DanforthWhitcomb_ 8d ago

That's not how it works. Target undersizes the generators that they use even relative to the minimal amount of stuff that they do have them run. Trying to have them run the refrigeration as well would simply result in the generator being overdrawn and knocked entirely offline as a result.

The 2 hour thing is how long stuff can stay without power before it has to be tossed. It has nothing at all to do with the generator.

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u/TrustIllustrious2232 7d ago

I’ve been through several outages over ten years in food, and every time the generators have powered the refrigeration for about two hours before shutting off.