POULSBO — City hall and several businesses were closed Friday as the southeastern part of Poulsbo experienced the brunt of a power outage caused by the Dec. 14-15 windstorm.

However, that didn’t stop Poulsbo Coast-to-Coast Do It Best Hardware owner Bonita Doerksen from being one of the few Poulsbo Village retailers to remain open, even without power.

After arriving at the store at 6:30 a.m. Friday morning to find Poulsbo Fire Department crews attempting to enter, things remained busy throughout the afternoon.

“We had a small leak in our sprinkler system, and when the power went out, it burst,” Doerksen said.

With help from firefighters and store employees as they arrived for work, Doerksen said she made the decision to keep the store open.

“When we opened at 8 a.m., we had people lined up outside,” she said.

Thanks to one worker bringing a generator from home, employees were able to use fans to dry the floor, while they escorted customers with flashlights, she said.

“We’ve almost sold out of batteries, and people are just thanking us all the time for being open,” Doerksen said.

While Doerksen and her employees were busy serving customers, city public works crews were doing their best to ensure the city’s water and sewer systems remained in operation.

“The good news is we didn’t have any problems, but it took a lot of work to keep it that way,” said Public Works Director Jeff Bauman.

From Thursday night when the power when power was restored citywide, water and sewer service wasn’t interrupted, Bauman said.

Many of the city’s wells and sewer pump stations have auxiliary power supplies, but there are few that don’t, he said.

A portable generator was stationed at one of the pump stations throughout the outage because of the continuous heavy flows, which left only one portable generator to be rotated between two other stations, he said.

“We had to rotate it every half hour,” he said.

In his department’s 2007 budget request, Bauman said he has asked for another portable generator and two sewer pumps to assist in similar events as the city grows.

“The council has been very supportive, and that will make it easier,” Bauman said.

Mayor Kathryn Quade expressed her thanks to all of the city employees who kept the city functioning during the power outage.

“I think our crews performed admirably,” Quade said.