Poor Communication During Extended Outages

I understand taking precautions to prevent wildfire and I was supportive of the PSPS shutdown. However, I feel that Xcel failed to set appropriate expectations for the extent of potential outages and communicated poorly with customers as events unfolded.

We made crucial decisions based on Xcel communications about the timing and length of outages that turned out to be wrong — in some cases, off by not just hours, but days. Power went off without warning, in some cases. We received messages stating that power was restored when it had not been and sometimes received numerous contradictory messages minutes apart. It was enormously frustrating to receive incorrect information over and over.

My neighborhood in Genesee has buried power lines and received no visible wind damage. Yet, we were still experiencing outages on Monday. I missed work, my husband was without access to a needed medical device, and like many others, we lost refrigerated and frozen food. Had Xcel provided accurate information we would have taken steps to better protect our family's health and safety.