LAKE GENEVA, Wis. \u2014 What was expected to be one of the busiest and most festive days of the year at Grand Geneva Resort & Spa quickly turned into a crisis when a powerful July 3 storm knocked out power and forced a resort-wide evacuation.<\/p>\n
One month later, employees say teamwork\u2014and a commitment to hospitality\u2014helped them navigate the unexpected while caring for about 1,500 guests gathered for the holiday weekend celebration.<\/p>\n
“It came in so fast, it was unbelievable,” General Manager Eric Grimm said. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my 20 years.”<\/p>\n
Within minutes, severe weather swept across the property, sending outdoor furniture flying and forcing guests and employees into basements, ballrooms and stairwells as National Weather Service alerts sounded overhead.<\/p>\n
“Watching all the furniture that we had already set up for the day suddenly get blown across the resort,” Grimm said. “It was just one big microburst heading from the golf course this way.”<\/p>\n
When guests emerged after the storm passed, they found fallen trees and debris scattered across the resort’s sprawling 1,300-acre campus.<\/p>\n
Even a month later, grounds crews continue clearing limbs and hauling debris to an on-site brush pile.<\/p>\n
Inside the resort, employees quickly shifted from celebration mode to emergency response.<\/p>\n
“We had to make it work,” assistant outlets manager Tristan Smith said.<\/p>\n
Without electricity, kitchens could no longer operate normally. Staff members relied on Timber Ridge Lodge, Grand Geneva’s sister property, which still had power, so chefs could continue preparing meals for guests.<\/p>\n
Chef intern Stephen Wesolidge said feeding thousands without electricity was unlike anything he had experienced.<\/p>\n
“Feeding over 2,000 guests is hard, especially when there’s no power,” Wesolidge said. “But I think our team was the perfect team to do it.”<\/p>\n
Employees also improvised outdoor cooking stations using grills purchased during the emergency.<\/p>\n
“I was manning the grill station for most of the day in the heat, the smoke,” Wesolidge said. “We were serving hot dogs and clams because we couldn’t cook inside.”<\/p>\n
Smith said in the days following, the staff also focused on supporting emergency crews working throughout Walworth County.<\/p>\n
“The biggest thing we were being told was they needed meals out in the field where the people were working,” Smith said.<\/p>\n
Resort employees prepared cold-cut wraps and distributed thousands of dollars in gas gift cards to crews operating chainsaws as they cleared storm damage.<\/p>\n
In the days after the storm, Grand Geneva also allowed several employees to volunteer on company time to continue feeding first responders and support recovery efforts throughout the county.<\/p>\n
For Grimm, the experience reinforced what he already believed about his staff.<\/p>\n
“I always knew we had an unbelievable team,” he said. “But in that moment, it really showed that our team has that heart for hospitality because we didn’t want to let anyone down.”<\/p>\n
As guests once again fill the dining rooms and golf courses, signs of the storm continue to disappear. But for employees who lived through one of the resort’s most challenging days, the memories remain.<\/p>\n
“It was one of those days that you’re going to remember forever,” Smith said. “Seeing the team come together and work through unexpected conditions to serve the guests and keep them safe.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAKE GENEVA, Wis. \u2014 What was expected to be one of the busiest and most festive days of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[2890,65,54461,1202,54460,2893,11706,11710],"class_list":["post-111381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-app-top-stories","tag-geneva","tag-kathryn-larson","tag-news","tag-on-air-ticker-article","tag-top-stories","tag-vod","tag-wisconsin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117033798377337694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}