Why was Walmart closed all day in Waynesville, and when will it reopen?
Aug. 9—The Waynesville Walmart closed its doors shortly after 10 a.m. on Wednesday and remained closed the rest of the day after power was knocked out by a truck driver.
A tractor-trailer truck making deliveries behind Walmart around 5:30 a.m. Wednesday hit a transformer.
"The tractor-trailer truck backed into a transformer," explained Waynesville Police Officer Chelsea Parton.
The truck tried to do a U-turn behind the building, but lacked an adequate turning radius. So the driver then attempted a three-point turn and backed into the transformer in the process, crushing it beyond repair.
The truck also ruptured the cooling lines for the transformer, leaking an oily substance onto the ground. Parton responded to the scene after a call came in reporting an electrical hazzard.
"Apparently, it burnt the underground connection," Parton said.
The transformer continued to feed power to the building for another five hours, however. Repair crews were forced to shut down power to begin repairs around 10:30 a.m.
The Walmart store does not have a generator, so Walmart workers went into a tailspin to save the frozen and refrigerated items. They worked tirelessly all day with no power — and the only light coming from skylights — to transfer most cold and frozen products to refrigerated and frozen trucks.
Had many of the products not been saved by their efforts, a food shortage could have ensued in Haywood County as it would take days if not weeks to fully restock the lost inventory.
Meanwhile, electrical crews scrambled to replace the busted transformer, but they had their work cut out for them.
A tangle of thick electrical cables feed the transformer that powers the building. The cables had to be severed in order to pull the damaged transformer out. A crane was brought in to lift the old transformer out and lower the new one into place.
Reconnecting the cables was another matter and was slowed by awaiting the arrival of a generator. Locating a high-capacity generator was a challenge in itself, with the closest available being eight hours away. It was still in transit as dusk set in.
Once the electricity to the store was killed around 10 a.m., the store was forced to shut its doors to the public.
All day long, store employees posted in front of the store turned away a steady stream of customers. Some would-be shoppers could tell something was amiss by the nearly-empty parking lot and kept on driving. But others parked and walk up to the doors only to be informed it was closed.
No information was offered to the rejected shoppers on when Walmart would reopen. That posed a problem for those in need of prescriptions from the pharmacy or trying to pick up special order birthday cakes. Should they come back later or wait until tomorrow?
As evening fell, the sentries posted outside out front revealed that the store would not open again until the next day, but when on Thursday was still unclear.
