DENVER — Xcel Energy said power restoration efforts could last into Monday or longer as crews work to restore power for more than 150,000 customers who lost power or had their power preemptively shut off as strong winds moved through Colorado this weekend.

As of 6 p.m. Sunday, Xcel reported about 87,000 customers were still without power. Power had been restored to about 63,000 customers, Xcel said. The utility said Sunday that about 450 crew members are working to restore power. 

 

“The way that we restore power is we take the biggest number of customers on a feeder line and we restore that first,” Xcel regional vice president Hollie Velasquez Horvath said Sunday afternoon. “Then we work ourselves down to the individual customer. We are asking for a little bit of grace, and we are going to get better at being able to do this.”

Velasquez Horvath said they’ve learned several lessons this weekend and are working on ways to better communicate with customers, but she stands by the decision they made to shut off power before the strong winds arrived.
 

RELATED: Some Boulder Valley, Denver, Jeffco schools closed Monday due to power outages
 

“I believe we made absolutely the right decision,” she said. “We have damage on our electric lines that is due to wind. If those lines were energized, that was a risk of a wildfire.”

About 55,000 customers had their power preemptively shut off, and more than 100,000 customers lost power at some point due to the wind.

Xcel said even though the winds have died down, crews need to inspect the more than 600 miles of powerlines that were preemptively de-energized before power can be restored. They said restoration efforts could extend into Monday or longer.

Powerlines were de-energized due to winds causing an increased risk of wildfire in Boulder, Gilpin, Jefferson, Larimer, Douglas and Broomfield counties, as well as the west Denver metro area along the foothills.

The shutoffs began at around 3 p.m. Saturday and continued into Sunday. Xcel released a map Saturday night of the approximate areas where the shutoffs were happening.

Dustin Tomson’s home in Littleton was part of the planned outage.

Tomson’s power was restored Sunday evening after 26 hours without electricity. His wife uses a CPAP, which forced them to spend Saturday night in a hotel. Tomson said his biggest frustration was Xcel’s poor communication surrounding the public safety shutoff plan.

“It was like a two to three hours’ notice that they were cutting our power and that it was going to be off for 20-21 hours,” Tomson said. “The only other communication they’ve given me was [Sunday] when they said they’re doing their best to get it back on and that they don’t know when it’s going to be back on.”

This is the first time Xcel has proactively shut off power before a storm in Colorado. Xcel operates in eight states, and has tried this method in other states. Xcel said de-energizing has become an increasingly common tool in helping reduce the risk of wildfires. 

The company also said it changed settings on many powerlines so that they would not try to restore power automatically if there was an issue that caused an outage, such as a tree branch contacting powerlines.

"Xcel Energy is changing the settings on those systems in many areas to prevent the automatic restoration of power. Instead, crews will patrol the area to ensure it is safe to restore service. This safety measure means power outages are likely to last longer. Crews are standing by, ready to conduct patrols and restore power when it is safe," the company said in a release Saturday.

Xcel warned customers who have medical equipment that requires electricity to prepare for the potential of extended outages.

South Metro Fire Rescue offered some tips for residents:

• People who are dependent on bottled oxygen should have enough spare bottles to get through Sunday, or should consider staying with family, friends or at a hotel outside planned outage areas.
• Smoke alarms may start chirping intermittently because the backup batteries are low and should be replaced.
• Do not use a gas stove to heat a home, do not use outdoor stoves indoors and keep generators outside in a well-ventilated area away from windows.

Reporting an outage

Customers can report outages to Xcel a few different ways:

• The My Xcel Energy mobile app, available in the Apple App Store and through Google Play.
• Online at xcelenergy.com/out
• Via text by texting OUT to 98936 to report an outage, or text STAT to the same number to check the status of a power outage
• By calling 1-800-895-1999 and following the prompts—the automated phone reporting system lets customers report outages in less than 60 seconds. Once the cause of the problem is identified, the system or an Xcel Energy representative will provide customers with an estimated restoration time when available.