Planned power outage December 17

We live in Golden, right by South Table Mesa. We understand that the risk of wildfire is high with the dry weather and our proximity to the open space. We do not want to lose our home and are mindful of the anniversary of the Louiseville fire. We knew we would have a power outage because Xcel started sharing this with us 5 days ago. What we didn't know was that Xcel would not have an acceptable plan for how to get the power back on once the wind event was over. We didn't know schools would be closed. We didn't know we would lose our power for 36 hours. We didn't know there would be no further updates on restoration of service. It seems the schools were also caught off-guard with this new policy of preventative power shut offs.

I would like to know that Xcel had the teams in place prior to the event to walk the 600 miles of service lines and restore power rapidly. I would like to know that they are thinking about how to compensate families for the work day lost while the kids were at home, in houses without electricity or heat or for the food in freezers that went bad. Its great to be proactive, but the company needs to have a plan for how to fix the mess that results from something like this and be more mindful of the downstream consequences.

We have to pay our bills, regardless of whether our power gets shut off. We have to miss work when our kids schools are closed. Kids are missing final exams and end of the year parties. Elderly people are trapped inside their homes when elevators are not working. Families with children who have special needs are relying on generators. These are real consequences. Xcel can't just leave everyone hanging once this happens. They should be accountable to rapid restoration of power as they help mitigate the risk of wildfires. This was terrible and its about to happen again tomorrow and the lack of communication and care for what happens after is telling- they don't really care about their customers.