A power outage in Downtown WG led to an act of kindness

Chris Chan knew something was wrong immediately.

It was Monday, July 7, and Chan, owner of Chris Chan Media, had just arrived at his office Monday, July 7, in downtown Winter Garden.

In the parking lot, he was met with ambulances, police officers and firefighters.

Within minutes, he learned what had happened.

“An elderly lady was trying to park her car; She was going to pay her bill over at City Hall there, and she was trying to park her car near our building,” he said. “And as she pulled in, unfortunately, she ended up kind of going into the power unit right in front of her.” 

The woman had collided with a transformer and knocked the power out to the entire building at 360 Plant St. In addition to Chan’s company, the building is home to three restaurants, BurgerFi, Cilantro’s Indian Cuisine and Matthew’s Steakhouse.

“I’ve just never thought of anything like that happening,” Chan said. “So when it hit, it was wild.”

Then, he saw her. 

“She just looked like she had the weight of the world on her,” Chan said of the woman who crashed into the building. “And I just realized she probably just needed a friend at the moment, so I just kind of sat with her and just talked and prayed a little bit.

“I just kind of was there with her in the moment,” he said. “She was so apologetic and just very concerned for the businesses and sad that it had happened, but it was an absolute accident.” 

In that moment, Chan decided being a human first was more important than rearranging his schedule, losing money from productions and live streams, or placing blame.

“That honestly helped me; I could have gotten so frustrated because I definitely did have a lot of meetings and a lot of live streams that I had to reschedule and stuff out of my production studio and money lost,” Chan said. “But that’s OK. I found humanity there.” 

Chan helped the police department get in contact with the landlord of the building so he could be notified of the accident. 

Then, Chan went to his social media to share the incident and ask for support in these trying times. 

Currently, the building is running on a generator sent from Jacksonville while parts for the transformer are being ordered to restore full power. 

Chan said the generator goes through four to five gallons of diesel per hour, bringing in a hefty price to pay for power. Full power should be restored in two weeks. 

WHAT HAPPENED: 

After the crash on Monday, July 7, the entire building at 360 W. Plant St. was without power until Wednesday, July 9, when a generator was installed.

The building is home to three restaurants — BurgerFi, Cilantro’s Indian Cuisine and Matthew’s Steakhouse. All three lost clientele for two days and Matthew’s had to replace all its food with new product because of the outage. 

According to Chan, it can take up to another week or two to receive full power to the building. 

In the meantime, Chan is encouraging residents to patronize the restaurants.

“Now, let’s come together as a community to support our local businesses here,” Chan said of the restaurants. “They lost about a couple of days here and some product. Maybe we can help make up for that by rallying together.”