Alexandre Dairy weighs on Complex fires impact

The Triplicate reached out to prominent Agri-business family farm Alexandre Dairy to understand the impact of the Smith River Complex fires and the week-long power blackout.

1) How has the PAC POWER de-energy shut down impacted the Alexandre Farm and the Dairy?

Like the rest of our community, we’ve had to quickly adjust to the shutdown. Thankfully, we have backup generators at the milk barns and we were able to get the cows milked and water to the cows indoors. We did have one generator go down for 30 hours, which made it extremely difficult to milk and water the cows at the farm but Pacific Power was able to get a generator to us and we greatly appreciated that. We also have Starlink and we are very grateful for that service because it allowed us to continue our online operations and communications. This is the first time we’ve experienced a power outage in Del Norte County in the summer where we needed to move more drinking water around to get it all to our outside grazing animals. Our team acted quickly and with great ingenuity to make this happen.

2) Have the newly-installed PAC POWER/ PG&E generators addressed Alexandre Dairy’s energy needs?

Yes, water and electricity-for our employee houses and their families- and electricity to the smaller wells that supply drinking water for our grazing cows and chickens.

3) What assistance, if any does the Dairy need from the county and the consumer?

Supporting our farm store is always appreciated, your thoughts and prayers and continuing to support our dairy community. Feel free and continue to come out to the farm and see the calves and say hello.

4) Please share with the community the message you wish to communicate on the challenges facing rural businesses.

Many businesses like C. Renner, Frank’s Refrigerator, Crescent Electric, Raintree Solutions really went out of their way to take care of us during this opportunity for community support. We are in close contact with our fellow dairy creameries like Rumiano Cheese and Humboldt Creamery to help coordinate milk hauls where we can. We did everything we could within our circles to help others as well. Crises like this are a wonderful opportunity to bring neighbors together and focus on helping others.