Complete CYA move by Xcel

I live in Gilpin so I should not have been impacted by the latest "public safety" outage, but I was. Some idiotic person on the board from United Power decided it was a good idea to buy our electricity from Xcel although it has always been an independent provider. When Xcel decided to cut power, which they said was for "public safety," but was actually a CYA and punitive move because they were held responsible for the Marshall fire, at least partially, they also cut the transmission line to United Power, without determining if it was even necessary. I was without power for four days, except for about 2 hours. These type of winds happen every December and January in Gilpin and we have never had a planned shutoff. We are prepared for such events and United Power has always done an excellent job until now. Gilpin County was not even listed on the outage map and when I called Xcel to ask why, they did not know we had an outage. I also blame United Power for their poor decisions but I think both companies should be fined and the funds reimbursed to the customers to help pay for loss of income, spoiled food, and inconvenience. I was told by United Power they will not refund any of the transmission charge or utility charge even though they were not transmitting anything. Utility companies need to be regulated because they are aware they can do what they want and we have no other options for electricity.