Unsustainable solution

Unfortunately with limited cellular services in some areas impacted by the shutoff emergency communication, shutoff updates and other essential communications could not be received at our location reliably. Additional coordination with service providers is needed to ensure public safety. For example, cellular service for several providers in our area became slow and unreliable as the shutoff continued. After 4 hours the landline service also failed as it is connected over fiberoptic lines and the transceivers lost power. Even using a backup power source was unable to connect until power was restored down stream. Cellular service also improved after power was restored.

The outages should have been shorter and tied to an active metric of conditions rather than just the weather forecast. While there were high and in some areas destructive gusts of wind, the sustained wind was nothing like the Marshall fire and this was not a similar event. The actual conditions should have instigated the time of the shutoff and the time to resume services rather than a strict reliance to the forecast. The shutoff could have been shortened by several hours on both ends both days.

Outage maps were unreliable, while some areas were included in the outage area they still had power. For example the Candelas neighborhood had power throughout the outage though marked on the outage map while Leyden was on the map and did have an outage. Both neighborhoods are geographically similar and received similar wind with different outages with similar ages to the neighborhoods so they should have similar electrical infrastructure. Other neighborhoods outside of the map lost power at the same time as the planned outage so it is hard to see them as being unplanned outages.

Additional communication after the shutoff has been concluded should include what repairs, if any, were required to bring each impacted customers power back online, this will help customers to understand why it was 12-20 hours after the event ended to restore power.

Continual shutdowns every time there is a forecast wind event will be unsustainable in the long term and more needs to be done to be proactive to reduce the need for public safety power shutoffs. Until the provider is financially obligated to assist with lost food, lost productivity and other losses from the planned shutdown they will grow longer in time and more frequent providing additional frustration to the public and businesses.