96 hours (5 days) without Power

On Wednesday, December 17th, at approximately 4:00 PM, our home lost power—just one hour after receiving a notice from Xcel Energy confirming that our address would NOT be affected by the scheduled shutoff on Thursday, December 18th. Nearly 96 hours—or five full days—later, we are still without electricity, leaving us without running water from our well, a reliable way to access the internet (or receive texts or voicemail since we live out of cell reception), and no way to preserve food. We evacuated our home yesterday after receiving yet another missed deadline from Xcel to restore power so we could get our family to safety to access water, food and internet.

This outage is not only inconvenient—it is a public safety crisis, and one that is not isolated. In 2024, our home was left without power for over 72 hours during another botched Xcel-planned outage while temperatures remained well below freezing, accompanied by abysmal communications and missed power restoration that happened over multiple days. That pattern has continued in this episode, highlighting a troubling lack of accountability and the absence of systemic solutions to prevent repeat failures or protect public health.

Despite multiple assurances that our power would not be included in the planned shutoff and that restoration times should have happened days ago, it has never been restored, not even for an hour. For example, we were told power would be temporarily restored at 8:00 PM on Thursday, December 18th, to allow residents to charge phones, fill water, and meet basic needs before another planned shutoff on Friday, December 19th at 5am. That restoration never occurred, and we were only notified via text at 3:00 AM.

From Wednesday, December 17 through Sunday, December 21, we have been left without power for a continuous 96 hours, approaching five days of complete outage. This experience has highlighted systemic failures in communication and leadership from Xcel Energy. Residents received conflicting information, restoration timelines were missed, and no proactive guidance was provided to manage basic needs.

While outages happen and safety is a priority, leaving households without electricity or water for five days—without accurate information or support—is unacceptable and a profound public health concern. Leadership and communications teams must be held accountable, and compensation for losses during multi-day outages is essential.

To put this in perspective: if an airline stranded passengers for five days, there would be clear expectations for accommodation vouchers, food reimbursements, alternative solutions from competitors and standard communication protocols. Utility services—especially power that supports vital services like water, internet, and cell access—should meet comparable standards.

This outage is more than an inconvenience—it is a public safety issue that demands immediate action, restitution, and accountability.