No notice in Littleton

Littleton is not known for its wildfires, so when I learned about households losing power preemptively, I thought it was a precaution for folks who live in high-risk areas with overhead power lines. Our power lines are underground and we didn’t have a history of wildfires in this part of Jefferson County. I also thought it would be tough on people who live in those areas, but at least they would have fair warning. We didn’t get any warning when the power went off on Saturday afternoon around 3 pm. The internet was out, but my phone was charged so I did what it said to do online—I texted Xcel’s contact number and reported the outage, then texted STAT to get the status over and over during the 43 hours we had no power. The only thing I got back was “We’re assessing the damage blah blah blah” over and over. I checked the company’s Twitter page and saw the same verbiage over and over to customer questions about when the power was coming back on, why they didn’t get any notice, what they were supposed to do if they had medical issues that required electricity. The coldest robo answer I saw from Xcel on their Twitter was “You should have an emergency backup plan if you have a medical condition that requires electricity.” Who says something like that, much less sets up AI answers like that to paying customers? As it went on for hours, 43 in total for my family, communication got more and more absurd on the Twitter site. The local news wasn’t a lot of help, either, as they (and even some national outlets) bought the company line wholesale and parroted back Xcel’s lame justification for preemptive shut-offs of power with little notice. We also assumed that because our power had been off first that maybe it would be restored quickly once the wind died down, but no. Why not, when there was no damage and no above ground lines in our neighborhood? Who knows? No one has explained any of this, why my neighborhood was left without power (and heat in many cases) for nearly 48 hours. A few of my neighbors bought and ran generators, but what about those of us who can’t afford a generator? Why would we think of needing one when we pay for our power already? My family is now researching solar because at least Xcel can’t shut off the sun on a whim.