Power remained out Wednesday night for thousands of Colorado customers affected by both a planned outage and outages caused by high winds. In Jefferson County, power had been shut down by Xcel Energy in many areas at about 10 a.m. and out all day, with plans to start re-energizing lines after 6 p.m. But much work remained.
Xcel said it had hundreds of crews out to inspect lines for breaks and downed trees before turning power back on, and crews could be seen driving neighborhoods in some areas in the dark. In Conifer there were outages from trees blown down. The Elk Creek Fire Department covered 13 calls in a 4 hour period, all electrical hazard or smoke-related.
Elk Creek Fire
Elk Creek Fire
“Once the wind event stops, it does not mean your power will be immediately restored,” said Xcel’s Colorado Robert Kenney.
“They have to visually inspect the lines for damage before restoring the power. But that process can’t begin until the wind subsides,” explained Kenney.
In some areas, drones or helicopter flights will be needed, but cannot fly until after daybreak Thursday.
“The power might be out for many hours, if not maybe a couple, three days.”
In many communities, traffic lights were out as well as power to businesses and homes.
“Still came downtown to do a little Christmas shopping. Power’s out at the house,” said Bryce McCallum who lived in the Genesee area, but came to downtown Golden in the afternoon.
Not all stores were open. Some business owners, knowing Xcel was going to have what is called a proactive public safety power shut-off did not open for the day.
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In the evening — in the Apple Meadows area north of North Table Mountain — power was out after dark. A couple out walking their dog felt the planned outage was a good idea.
“Probably. Especially if there’s a snapped power pole down the road.” That was a short distance away on Highway 93, where two power poles snapped in the wind.
The weather was varied with winds at times strong and at times calmer. Facial Esthetics in Golden remained open.
“It is weird. We saw lots of clouds, no clouds. We’ve been watching the leaves. Lots of wind, no wind,” said manager Amanda Stamm.
Across the street, restaurant owner Brandon Bortles and his girlfriend were able to round up a generator. He was worried about keeping his food cold as the power outage continued. They at first iced the food, then got a big generator to run refrigeration.
“We still have a bunch of food on ice, but I’m kind of feeling out that that’s not going to be sufficient,” he explained.
Without power he would not be able to open Nosu Ramen and worried about the duration of the outage, particularly at the holidays with two days next week when they won’t open on Christmas Eve and Christmas.
“I was already kind of stressed about that and add this on top of it and I have to throw away a bunch of food. It hurts.” He carries business interruption insurance, but found out his insurance company won’t cover losses.
“The hardest news I took today was we are not eligible for business interruption, because this isn’t a weather event. This is a pre-emptive move.,” he said. He wondered whether Xcel’s move was better for the power company than small business. The weather he noted was more pleasant at 60 degrees, but just not right at this time of year.
“It’s really not a good thing. Especially when we’ve got the Front Range right here that could really catch fire and burn people’s homes.”
