Feels Punitive

The first planned outage on December 17 went into effect pretty much right on time. Here in Golden, businesses and residence were without power for 28 hours - I believe that was well over the estimated restoration time that was initially quoted. Updates were seldom and inaccurate; basically the amount of time we had planned for having an outage was stretched double or triple the amount of time which really does affect things.
During the first outage, there was wind, and there were gusts, but we had worse, way worse, a week before and there were no shut offs.

The second planned outage on December 19 went into effect pretty close to the time estimated. And was projected to last until 10 PM the same day. Around mid-day, an update was sent out informing customers that the outage would extend another 24 hours.

During the second outage, it’s pretty much been still outside the whole time with the exception of working hours on December 19, having some light gusts but again, nothing alarming. At the time of writing this it is December 20 and during the late morning: there is absolutely zero wind, not even a breeze.

I think XCEL intended for it to be painful to customers since being held accountable for negligence resulting in the Marshall fire. It is, what I believe, a flippant and punitive measure towards people in the areas adjacent to Superior.

The impact to their customers’ lives from a monetary and safety standpoint is apparent: unheated homes run the risk of burst water pipes, groceries (which have gone up 40% in the last year) run the risk of spoiling with lots of people having to go well away from where they live in order to just get ice to preserve their food, some people are reliant on equipment to sustain their health and in some cases their lives, lost revenue for small businesses: think restaurants with lost in inventory and mom pop retail shops. All of this for “safety.”

Many people see this as a selfish, punishing measure from a few people who are banking millions from us and continue to raise their prices so they can fill their greedy little pockets with more. This is appalling and egregious.

What I’m starting to worry about now is; is this the way winter is going to be from now on? Will the power be shut off every other day?

We are experiencing both a tremendous rise in cost for electrical service and a tremendous fall in reliability of that service. The power company is basically saying “you’ll get what we feed you, shut up and pay your bill. “I honestly wouldn’t mind paying a little more for electricity if the infrastructure is maintained and updated to handle what is becoming normal weather patterns. But we are paying more for less, and we are being taken advantage of by these corporate jerks.