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HUNTSVILLE, Alabama — Halsey FoodService is spending about $4,000 per day in fuel on each of its three generators at its sprawling Madison facility.

Much of the food Halsey sells to restaurants is useless because many of those restaurants are closed because of the tornado-related power outages or they have been damaged by the storms themselves.

So the company has simply been giving the food away to those who need it – tornado refugees without a home or electricity, or emergency workers or volunteers.

“You just never feel like you can do enough,” Cecilia Halsey, president and CEO of Halsey FoodService, said Monday. “It’s hard to help as many people as you want to help.”

Rolo Weaver is the owner of Rolo’s Cafe, which has locations on Airport Road and University Drive. The Airport Road restaurant re-opened Monday morning while University Drive remains closed.

Weaver said the restaurant lost all of its food when it lost power. Before it ruined, though, Weaver took it to Joe Davis Stadium where the Huntsville Stars cooked the food for emergency and utility workers as well as the general public.

“We’re probably looking at $10,000 (in inventory),” Weaver said, “and that’s probably conservative when you get down to it.”

As the cleanup continues throughout the state, a hidden casualty of the storms is coming into view. Businesses – and their employees – are facing significant losses to their bottom lines.

“It’s tough on your employees,” Weaver said. “They are looking forward to that check every week and you can’t afford to pay them when they’re not working.

“You’ve got the employees you hate to throw out of work when they want to work. It makes it tough.”

Halsey estimated the food the company has given away will reach into the “tens of thousands of dollars.” The Madison facility got power back Monday but the company is still running its generators to its more than 100,000-square-foot freezers to conserve power.

“Whoever is open, we’re helping them get back up to speed,” Halsey said of customers. “So many people are still without power. I wouldn’t say we’re doing our normal delivery.

“We’re doing a lot of community help stuff. We’ve got a large order going to the Monrovia Community Center (Monday). We’ve been doing stuff with fire and rescue all along.”

Asked if it was a setback to the business, Halsey said, “I don’t look at this as a setback at all. I think it’s a great opportunity for us to do something for our community.”

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