The Butler’s Pantry in Cotswold. TM Petaccia/UP

It’s summertime in Charlotte — and with the fun and sun also comes thunderstorms and power outages.

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 16, storms ripped through Charlotte and caused the electricity to go out in several neighborhoods, including Cotswold and the Cotswold Village shopping center.

“Our power went out around 4:30 p.m. and stayed out for the next 19 hours,” says Andrew King, owner of The Butler’s Pantry.

The Butler’s Pantry is a prepared food provisioner offering many house-made “heat and eat” main dishes and sides in addition to select wines and shelf items. When the power went out, just about all his refrigerated and frozen items were destroyed.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, refrigerated perishable foods begin to spoil after about four hours without power. Frozen items can last up to 24 hours under the right conditions. However, King had to throw it all out.

“Our glass-fronted units just don’t hold temp as well as the stainless steel freezers do,” King says.

The Butler’s Pantry faced $7,840 in product losses, plus an estimated $3,790 in lost revenue from being closed.

“Of that, about $6,250 was covered by insurance — and only because I had my insurance agent add a rider to my policy to cover food losses,” King says. “Otherwise, the carrier would not have paid this.”

King’s policy has a $1,000 deductible, and cost of the packaging materials is not covered, hence the difference between actual and covered product losses. The revenue losses were not covered, as King’s policy states loss of revenue coverage doesn’t kick in until the third day of an outage.

The power was restored at approximately 11:30am on Friday. It was another two hours before The Butler’s Pantry’s refrigerators and freezers could get back to proper temperatures. That’s when King and crew started remaking their inventory. “It took 74 labor hours, spread over two days — two very long days for everyone,” King says. “We reopened on Saturday with about 60 percent stocked, and managed to get fully stocked by the time we opened Monday,” says King.

During Charlotte summers, such incidents aren’t unusual, says WCNC Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich.

“Summer storms become very powerful because the intense heat and humidity that gets lifted high into the atmosphere has to come crashing back down,” he says. “When this happens, we get very powerful downbursts, which can have winds from 40 mph to as high as 125 mph. This combined with heavy rainfall and powerful lightning can create numerous power outages. Summer storms really can cause havoc on trees and power lines and air travel.”

While you can’t stop Mother Nature, King’s foresight prevented his business from experiencing a more severe loss of income.

“We were out of power for 19 hours,” he says. “That much loss for such a short period of time without power underscores the need for small food businesses to make sure their insurance covers food loss.”