Xcel needs better planning and communication

The Public Safety shutdown caused considerable inconvenience to our family. It was problematic because of the inconsistency of the information on the shutdown. We initially were told that service would shut down early on Wednesday and resume later in the evening. While inconvenient, it did not require special action. Our refrigerator and freezer would maintain temperature for that amount of time. The hot water tank would stay hot and the in-house temperature would stay habitable for that amount of time. The resumption of service time, however, continued to change throughout the day. By end of day, we knew we would not have power until the next day but there was information about the possibility that power could be out for several days.

By Thursday morning, power was still out and home temperatures were in the mid 50’s. Since we did not have a firm resumption time, I made the decision to go out and buy dry ice for our freezers and ice for our refrigerator. Other people had the same thought, and it was hard to find in locations near the foothills and near highways. Based on this information, I went to a downtown store that had stock. I purchased what I needed and left for home.

On the way back, I got a call from my family informing me that power was back but there was notification that power was likely to shut down again on Friday. I left the dry ice and ice in coolers in the event power went out again. Furthermore, I had to use internet for work. Given that there was a limited time I had to work through most of the night. I was still working at 5:40am when the power went out. I loaded the freezers and refrigerators with ice. Again, there was little accurate information on when the power would resume.

The power did not resume until 1:00pm on Saturday. By the time we had reliable power, we had experienced two 30+ hours outages in three days. Our neighbor, who was checking our home after the power resumed, fell and hurt himself when he was doing so.

I understand the need for power shutdowns to prevent catastrophic fires. On the other hand, over 50,000 people were not only inconvenienced but, in some cases, people who had medical issues, had to plan for their own health and continued safety. People with wells did not even have access to potable water. Furthermore, because of the lack of reliable phone and internet access in many parts of the foothills, many customers can’t even get critical emergency updates once the power shutdown starts. There must be a balance between the risk of fire and risk of harm to the people in the shutdown area. There is also a loss of economic productivity due to shutdowns.

The shut down process needs to be reassessed. First, the communication problem must be solved. The utility company also needs to take steps to minimize the down time and to improve their power infrastructure in those areas that are prone to winds and fire.

Following some of the issues that I believe need to be addressed:

• There must be a single provider of information, and it should be the utility company. The utility company should not only be sending regular updates to the affected customers but also have an easily accessible online site to get the latest info. At one point, I went online to the Xcel website with my phone to see when I could expect service to restart. I found an Xcel map that showed the front range and the length of the expected outage for different communities. The map was so bad that I couldn’t figure out where my home was and how long until power would resume.
• Xcel (or someone) must find a way to communicate with customers who lose phone and internet service due to their shutoff. Should a fire have started on the mountain, we would not have known to evacuate. (Our home does not have reliable internet or cell phone coverage, so we must drive several miles to get connectivity).
• While this was a wind driven outage, there were significant times when the power was out when there were no winds. Xcel needs to be able to turn off and on the power more quickly. Intermittent power is better than no power. If there are issues with being able to do this, they must be solved.
• Xcel needs to upgrade its power grid in the foothills. Equipment that is prone to starting fires needs to be replaced with safer equipment. It may be that the entire foothills utility system needs to be more robust than other areas of the state. It may take time and be costly to do but it is not unreasonable to expect a reliable power system.
• The foothills community needs to be told whether shutdowns are going to be an occurrence going into the future. In the past, our system has been very reliable with nearly no shutdowns in the last five years. If this is going to happen every time we have strong winds (which we have often), we need to make decisions on what equipment we need to buy or install to be able to have power when we need it.