No Notification

Firstly, more advance notice would have been helpful. This would have enabled my wife and I to get more prepared with supplies and safely getting our food out of the fridge and prepare for getting our elderly cats their medicine, it also would have been helpful for our roommate who has an autistic daughter who uses oxygen to be able to prepare in advance for an alternative -thankfully, she wasn't staying over that night! Our neighbors had no water because their well has an electric pump. They were forced to get water from our faucet in order to flush their toilets and bathe, etc. Similarly, our friend who lives on 55th street had a similar problem with well water. All of them had little or no notice of the shut off. Secondly, when I called Xcel, I waited for over 45 minutes to talk to somebody and they were not helpful at all. They basically said that it was unavoidable and were rude and discourteous and told me not to interrupt them or they would hang up on me. I was met with an indignant attitude when I asked why Xcel was not maintaining their infrastructure better and was flatly and vehemently told that they were. I was then told that power might not be back on until Monday or later. Thankfully it came on at 6:30 that evening.

Essentially this experience with Xcel has only further strengthened my opinion that they are cutting corners on staffing and hiring enough employees to maintain their power lines safely and to provide adequate customer service via phone, automated operators and phone systems are obviously not a substitue for real people. My wife and I had to scramble to find a cooler to try and save the food we had just bought from spoiling, additionally no gas stations or grocery stores had any ice in town when we rushed out to get some due to the last minute notice –for others. We spent a cold night in our basement with candles and a flashlight, eating cold leftovers, feeling totally stressed out and anxious because we had the power just shut down at 3:00pm; no warning. The next morning because we have an electric range, we were forced to build a fire in the fireplace to warm our house and our cats, one of whom has a hyperthyroid and is adversely affected by the cold and to boil some water for tea. We went out and drove all over Boulder and were surprised to see that many parts of town never lost power. Specifically west of Broadway, (which seems like it is more at risk due to the proximity of the foothills and trees), up by NIST and NOAA and out in Gunbarrel by Lockheed Martin. Why the power wasn't shut down everywhere unilaterally, if the storm was going to be as bad as predicted (which it wasn't), seems suspect. Moreover the fact that much of the areas that were de-energized were poorer neighborhoods seems discriminatory and negligent. My wife and I also drove past the Xcel headquarters near Valmont Butte and much of their fleet was parked there in their lot and nobody seemed to be doing anything. There certainly didn't seem to be any sense of urgency or emergency on the part of Xcel or their employees from what we could see. In fact I couldn't see anybody, it was just fleet vehicles, cars and trucks sitting there. Ultimately, this whole thing reeks of negligence on Xcel's part. The amount of stress and worry that they created was unnecessary. Moreover, I was born and have lived in Boulder for over 40 years and I have seen a lot of high winds and damage. We live on a property with a lot of trees and it isn't uncommon for large branches to break, etc. However, we had hardly anything break. A few small, sticks and branches was all that was affected. Nothing substantial. And the the wind gusts that I heard were nothing out of the ordinary for a spring chinook. I literally used to ride my bike to school in these level of winds as a kid. Additionally, when we went out in Boulder the next day, I saw no evidence of anything major due to the wind. No, upturned trees, no branches on power or telephone wires, no broken windows, or houses damaged, no smashed cars. Nothing. It seems like it was an overreaction due to a hyper-inflated and obviously incorrect weather forecast. While I appreciate that Xcel was concerned and was trying to play it safe. It was a a big overreaction and I hope that this isn't going to become standard procedure in the future?!! I understand the the Marshall Fire was a big catalyst in this and Xcel is a bit spooked, but to only turn off some of the power begs the question: why turn any of it off at all? Where is the safety in turning off some of the power? Can Xcel magically predict when power lines will go down?

Lastly, the elephant in the room is that Xcel needs to hire more employees and they need to redouble their efforts on maintaining and keeping their electric infrastructure secure. Perhaps they need to bury the lines at their expense? Regardless it was a real bungle and smacks of corruption, disorganization, laziness and ineffectual-ism. Xcel is obviously a monopoly and should be held accountable to antitrust laws. A local power company seems like a really good idea. Maybe we can make that happen at last?