Lottery System for Preemptive Shutoffs?

In our neighborhood in Berthoud, we were part of a planned “precautionary” shut off from 3pm on Saturday until 1 pm on Sunday, due to the high winds. We live in a very small neighborhood with no exposed power lines (all buried) and no mature trees, so this seemed odd. When we asked around, no one outside of our neighborhood seemed to have been notified of a shut off, including our commercial business 3 miles away in Berthoud (with incredibly old and drooping powerlines) nor family in Loveland.

We drove around late Saturday night to find that the areas we thought would be a high risk, with many exposed power lines running along streets and between houses, all still had power, including our business location. Our tiny residential neighborhood was one of 3 neighborhoods in Berthoud that were affected. The businesses across the street from us still had power. The golf course still had power. The multi-million dollar homes all still had power. The entire town of Berthoud, all visible homes off of Hwy 287, and everything along Hwy 17 North of Hwy 287 still had power. But our little neighborhood was left in the dark on a very cold evening. We checked on several of our elderly neighbors prior to the shutoff, one specifically where a spouse is on machines and going through intense medical treatments, to ensure they were prepared and had whatever they needed. The husband was scared for his wife but said they'd "buckle down and ride it out".

What were the parameters for this shutoff? This seemed like a lottery system, selecting the few unfortunate neighborhoods that would be effected in a Public Relations effort for Xcel Energy to say they actually did something.

We have family who lives one block east of Washington Park in Denver where there are numerous exposed power lines and massive trees, and they did not get a preemptive shutoff. However due to high winds, they were without power until Tuesday because of fallen trees and smashed power lines.

So, I ask again, what is going on here? This was a total sham.