Apple Meadows, same old wind, just no more power

I live in north Golden, close to highway 93. I grew up in Colorado in the foothills, and have lived on the west side of town for close to 54 years.

I understand our high winds, dry conditions, fire danger. I live just 10 miles south of Marshall. I even appreciated and prepared for the Planned outage yesterday (12/17/25, from 10am - 6pm), that Xcel warned me about for days on end leading up to the wind event.

I appreciate the precautions due to the fire concern, however, we are now in day 4 of what was only supposed to be an 8 hour shut off. I called Xcel last night to get any updates (no more proactive communication from them), and just got the response “we don’t know”.

I know that we have dangerous high winds events. Quite frankly, I’ve grown up with these wind events all my life. I believe the energy company understands Colorado weather and their equipment can handle our weather including our sustained high winds. It has handled it for my entire life - up until the Marshall fire.

Liability is 100% the reason why my power is still shut off 74 hours later (and neighborhoods a block away HAVE POWER) and probably will be shut off until Monday 12/21 (from the little I’m gleaning from reports in the news). Yet, every single year for the last 54 years, we have had hellacious winds from November - June in my neighborhood with power outages few and far between. The equipment has been built to handle our weather conditions. Not only that, as many people have pointed out, what’s the safety precaution when people a mile away have power? Their lines could go down too, couldn’t they?

What’s new is the threat of liability and executives making sweeping decisions to protect their perceived fears of more law suits. I think everyone in our neighborhood understands that there were multiple contributing factors in the Marshall Fire case. If Xcel is so terrified that their power lines can’t withstand the wind events (that we get every year), then they need to spend their energy and resources on improving their equipment.

You cannot tell me that in this day and age, with where we are in technology and how much money we are being charged for our energy that they don’t have the money to build a solid enough infrastructure to keep our energy on during the winter months?…. I’m just not buying it. The excuses are weak. Our wind continues like this until June. I get it that it’s dry. But if they are using snow and moisture as their only defense for fire prevention (because it’s free), then we all have bigger problems here.

The fact that all day today, so far, has been calm and mild and they still haven’t restored my power is telling. They say they are getting around to it as quick as they can? 24-48 or 72 hours to restore power in my neighborhood, Apple Meadows, where we have had no damage is unacceptable. They may have damage elsewhere, but they need to have enough crews to make timely inspections in neighborhoods like mine where all of this was extreme over precaution. They absolutely could turn it back on right now, but they won’t.

Now, instead of getting dozens of texts, emails and voicemails, telling me what’s going on, it’s crickets. Because, they know, like I do, this is all a sham.

ps, it’s Saturday, 12/20 and it’s snowing now.