Pawnee Grocery Store Reopened After Earthquake

A grocery store in Pawnee is back open after the earthquake rattled the aisles, causing things to fall off the shelves and break.

Employees were inside at the time, but no one was hurt.

Parts of the ceiling are on the floor, groceries are everywhere and the owner says this earthquake caused thousands of dollars worth of damage.

"We've had a few earthquakes and we've had little stuff on the floor, but nothing like this,” said White's Foodliner Employee Lorri Banta.

Banta felt the quake. "it was bad,” she said.

Not far from the store, downtown at 6th and Harrison, part of a building was left crumbled on the sidewalk.

"From what we can tell, that's the worst damage,” said Pawnee Mayor Brad Sewell. “It's an old, historic sandstone building."

Sewell says emergency crews from other cities stepped in to help. That's the reason lifelong resident of Pawnee Patti Novotny was the only shopper allowed inside the grocery store while employees worked to clean up broken glass and sticky floors.

"I kinda let myself in for the guys," said Novotny.

She wanted to make sure firefighters and other crews had lunch.

"We've got bananas,” said Novotny. “We've got fruit and vegetables and sandwich stuff, ham, turkey, bologna, bread [and] potato chips for starters."

Banta says allowing Patti to step inside and get those groceries is the least the store can do to live up to the Oklahoma standard.

Sewell says inspectors will be checking out buildings this weekend to make sure they're safe.