HASTINGS, NE — Today, Daniel Buller cracks a light smile when he walks into the electrical room in the basement of Crossroads Mission Avenue in Hastings.

But it was this room that kicked off the month from hell for the homeless shelter’s executive director. It started on Christmas.

“I was a long ways away, 1800 miles away in Texas, I got a phone call that we had an alarm up at Crossroads 702 W 14th St,” Buller said.

Extremely cold temperatures had frozen a sprinkler head, causing the system to dump water on a large breaker panel. The fire marshal and electrical inspector deemed the building unsafe.

“They said we had to find a different place to go within hours for 82 people," Buller said. "There’s just a lot going on in a short amount of time on Christmas night. It was not a fun Christmas.”

The local E-Free church stepped up to help with transportation and the Church of Christ, Berean Church and Unity House each set up temporary shelters. Still, over the course of the next month, about 50 people were forced to go to shelters across the state.

“I think that’s a terrible situation to be woke up in the middle of the night, next thing you know you have to go stay at a shelter maybe 100-some miles away that you’ve never been to, in a city that you don’t know. So they faced a lot,” Buller said.

But now people are moving back in at the facility in Hastings. State and local electrical inspectors worked to clean up the breaker box and add another cutoff switch. The temporary fix is approved for six months with regular inspections while Crossroads waits for a new panel to arrive.

Buller says it’s a relief for residents and staff to be back.

“We had to get very creative, we had to pay for hotel stays, we had to do a lot," Buller said. "What that does is it just stretches our staff as far as we could stretch them. I know they were tired, they were weary, emotionally drained. Just as a director, trying to direct that, trying to take care of staff, make sure that people could be taken care of - yeah, it was a long month.”

Buller estimates repairs and upgrades will end up totaling around $200,000, but the exact cost isn’t clear yet. What is clear, is the importance of the shelter.

“What this did for really the whole community, is really highlight the fact that Crossroads is a critical component of the community," Buller said. "To have a healthy community, really, Crossroads needs to be here.”