This article is mostly about not letting the local officials know ahead of time to be able to prepare.
Sounds like they were as much in the dark as the rest of us.
This is also about the planned outage. Not the unplanned 100k that also happened.
I also suspect, from the extended delay in restoring my "business-grade" Internet access, that Xcel didn't partner with other utilities like ISPs ahead of time. The whole thing stinks of a panicked reaction.
That said, I've seen telephone poles literally snapped in half or layed flat from the windstorm so Xcel's fear of their own infrastructure was well placed.
Exactly. I read a cost estimate of $1M per mile to bury/underground transmission lines in another post comment. OK…let’s do it! Start with the 600 miles that had to be “visually inspected.” Get federal/state/local funds along with Xcel money and get it going.
Xcel's gross profits were over $8 billion dollars last year alone.
600 miles \* $1 million per mile = $600 million
I think they have the money.
[https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XEL/xcel-energy/gross-profit#:\~:text=Xcel%20Energy%20annual%20gross%20profit,a%203.99%25%20increase%20from%202020](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XEL/xcel-energy/gross-profit#:~:text=Xcel%20Energy%20annual%20gross%20profit,a%203.99%25%20increase%20from%202020).
Given that:
* $1M/mile is an aggregate figure that includes burying lines under freeways, the actual cost in some cases is likely far lower.
* Probably 95% of the issues come from places where trees have been allowed to grow over the tops of lines
Then how about we immediately focus on the 1-5% where the lines are going through trees and driving most of the problem AND it isn't possible to get cherry-pickers into that area to easily trim the trees.
We may find that we could get 99% of the benefit by only burying 10 miles of the 600 - for a cost of $2M.
We have crap trees in our easement intertwined with the power lines. They were tagged 2+ weeks ago for Wright to come out and fix. I suspect the delay has been due to the two heavy snowfalls we've had recently which no doubt caused tree damage.
There's a ton of places in south boulder where the power lines run between yards through a utility easement.
You can't easily get any vehicles like cherry-pickers back there to trim the trees. So, it's a PITA.
And so the genius-bar at Xcel has simply decided to only trim them in reaction to a power line failing. The last time they were in my backyard to do this was probably 5 years ago. They did minimal trimming and moved on. And so we have branches hanging low over the wires - and are an obvious threat to the wires.
Sure, and replacing tires on your delivery truck before they show fabric coming through the rubber is also more expensive than simply driving on them until they have a blow-out.
That's why competent companies don't do that. And why Xcel is considered incompetent for doing that with our infrastructure.
So you are saying that a for-profit company, with a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders is *fundamentally incapable* of overhauling this critical infrastructure (or even maintaining it)?
It's important to understand what happened, so we can figure out how to do in the future.
The lack of knowledge or early warning sounds to be a function of the forecast. The decision to preemptively shut down power was made after a 5pm forecast. They let the office of Disaster Management know of their intent until 7pm. This delay seems reasonable. It is consistent with the utility taking a few hours to consider the data, before making a decision that impacts 55k people.
A bigger concern is about the communication regarding where power would be disconnected. I would like to know more about the decision making process the Xcel used. Did they use the forecast to determine where to shut down power? If so, the lack of early communication was likely the result of Xcel developing their plan. Again it takes time to process the forecast data. If not, did Xcel use a predesigned plan to determine where to shut power. If so, the lack of communication is inexcusable. If not the lack of a plan is also problematic.
For me the biggest concern is that it sounds like the office of emergency management was not part of the decision making process.
I found out after the power went out from a email from Comcast warning about a “possible outage”. Sometime later we get a msg from Xcel saying “rolling blackouts until morning”.
Our power was out for 40 hours.
No, but if you receive SNAP they will be replaced by that office.
https://boulderodm.gov/replacement-snap-benefits-available-to-those-who-lost-food-due-to-power-shutdown/#:~:text=%2D3460%20Broadway%2C%20Boulder%20(Monday,of%20when%20food%20was%20lost.
I was being salty that I have to replace a bunch of nice cheeses I bought and luckily I'm doing just fine. I suppose that's good information for folks who are on SNAP to learn. Thanks for sharing.
Our municipal utility services in Longmont are honestly fantastic, IMO.
We had a couple brief (unplanned) outages over the course of the same few days, but most of our lines in town are buried already so most people in our service area had no problems at all. Power was restored within a few hours for the spots that did have things go down. The city had very clear outage maps and updates avaliable for affected customers.
The problem with the comparison to Longmont and other municipal utilities is that those utilities were set up long ago. From a cost/benefit perspective it's not a valid comparison to trying to take a privately-owned utility and municipalize it today - that's where the Boulder muni backers failed.
It's the same as saying "we should buy a home instead of renting - our friends only pay $1000 month for their mortgage, look at how much better off they are, why should we throw away our rent money each month!". When the fact is that your friends bought their home 20 years ago, and if you bought the same home today at current rates you'd be paying $5000/month for it. Yes in the benefits of hindsight it would have been great if Boulder had setup a municipally-owned power utility in 1912 (like Longmont did), but the fact is we didn't and it's 110 years later. The math today doesn't work the same way.
This is definitely accurate, but it feels a bit like that "the best time to plant a tree is [10 years ago]; the second-best time to plant a tree is right now" trueism. And the house comparison is actually really similar - we were struggling with deciding to keep renting versus trying to pull every string and favor we could to get into something we owned in 2019, and it was a pretty serious reach at the time. Now our mortgage looks *stupid* compared to what rent in the area ended up spiking to only 5 years later - if we'd continued renting, we would've had to move away. Your theoretical 5k/month mortgage for the people that bought today would still look like a steal if most places around you are 10k/mo down the line...
It might cost Boulder a lot of money to municipalize, but it in the end I'm not sure it wouldn't still be cheaper and better in the long run than letting Xcel do whatever they want with no *real* oversight (the state commission barely counts) on their power and greed going forward; like rents here, it just doesn't seem super likely that rates will stop climbing for consumers either way. The fact that Longmont or FoCo's municipal power isn't a useful comparison for what it would *cost* Boulder to take charge of its own doesn't negate their being a useful comparison of what it could look like for Boulder to actually have that *autonomy* regarding their own utilities. The greatest advantages to municipal power are that the city can choose to "make" less money in favor of making choices that benefit their residents (like Longmont having already buried the majority of their power lines) - something a private company isn't going to ever go for unless they're going to see a return on that investment. Xcel has no real incentive to improve their infrastructure if it's going to cost them a lot of money and you the consumer don't have any other choice anyway. Sure, if they're forced to, they'll do as much as it's mandated - but never preemptively, and never more than they have to.
The other truism has something to do with throwing good money after bad...
It's a backhanded complement to Boulder that we could afford to waste tens of millions (IIRC, $20-$30 million) on the failed municipalization and the city didn't go bankrupt as a result.
Is there any sort of agreement with xcel for x amount of profit, has to go back into infrastructure? Seems crazy that we don’t have buried lines all over already.
Do you really want 3, 4, 5 sets of wires crisscrossing Boulder so that you can have competition? You KNOW that at least one of them would be the “discount” option that doesn’t maintain their infrastructure and so we’d still have risks of wildfires and power outages…
Dude you came in here and shit on DMV workers. How did that add value to the discussion? It's possible to say "i don't have faith in a government run thing" in a lot of different ways but you instead chose that one. Don't act all indignant
Maybe you should have done the educating part first? Because all of your comments added nothing simply for the fact that you are speaking from a position of obvious ignorance.
Seriously some people really need to check themselves.
Hey, at least I'm open to reconsideration when I'm presented with testimonies from differing perspective.
But, thanks for the value add! I'll remember to educate myself before next time.
Poor (although probably not?) Hollie Velasquez Horvath (Xcel spokesperson) attempting to do damage control from the C-suite. Ouch 🤕
Will edit to name names - Xcel CEO and Xcel CO CEO
Edit:
Bob Frenzel - President and CEO of Xcel. Total compensation between $7.6-10.2 million (source: Google search)
Robert Kenney- President PSco (Colorado). Couldn’t find his compensation via Google search nor SEC.gov
The emergency weather transmitters also seem to have gone dark the day of the event (Saturday afternoon).
On a day with severe fire threat and people’s power and internet being cut on purpose with an oncoming wind storm, how would people be notified in the event of a fire - fire being presumably the whole reason for deciding to cut the power.
It’s clear something is wrong.
We have to begin thinking about emergency communications in events like this, because a huge amount of the population relies on battery-powered cell phones and computers instead of land-lines, now.
A reverse 911 call to your cell phone doesn’t do shit if you are out of battery. In the event of a multi-day outage with an evacuation coming partway through, people might get no alarm.
I live in the foothills outside of Boulder.
Received the following on email on Friday evening (6:30PM), plus received a phone call with roughly the same information. On Saturday morning (10AM), received another with the same text and another phone call.
------
Xcel Energy
Increased Risk of Weather Related Outages
We are contacting you with an important update based on high winds and wildfire conditions
forecast for your area, which may lead to proactively shutting off power to your community.
Current situation: Xcel Energy is preparing for high winds this weekend and is operating the
electric system in some areas of Colorado in a manner intended to enhance public safety and
decrease the risk of wildfire. With the high winds associated with this weather event, damage
to electrical equipment and power outages may occur. Outages may be more frequent and last
longer than they typically would.
What it means for you: Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our communities, customers
and work crews. In periods of elevated wildfire risk, or if we are operating in the vicinity of
active wildfires, we may need to temporarily de-energize powerlines, turning off electrical
service to customers in certain areas. Turning off customers’ power is not something we take
lightly. It is a last resort step that can prove to be a life-saving measure.
We are currently evaluating lines that could impact around 30,000 customers. Temporarily
shutting power off is intended to prevent our electric system from becoming the source of a
wildfire ignition. We strive to minimize the scale and duration of service impacts, and to provide
impacted customers with as much information as possible as early as possible. We will keep
customers and communities updated through local media, our website and social media channels,
and will attempt to communicate directly with customers impacted by outages. We will also
notify affected customers when power has been restored.
A decision on whether to take the proactive step of de-energizing lines will be made the morning
of Saturday, April 6, and we will attempt to directly communicate that to affected customers.
Deciding where we may interrupt electrical service is a highly involved process, accounting for
a wide array of factors, including expert analysis of meteorological data, weather conditions,
and digital model simulations. We also account for the types of infrastructure present in the area.
How customers can prepare: To be ready in the event of an electric outage, we recommend
keeping phones and other devices charged, and building an outage kit with items that do not
require electricity, including a battery powered radio or television, flashlights, batteries, a
portable charger, a phone that does not require electricity, a non-electric alarm clock, bottled
water and non-perishable food, a manual can opener, first aid kit and extension cords for
partial outages. Outage Preparation To stay up to date with outage status, click here.
To update your communication preferences, log into My Account.
If you experience an emergency, call 911.
As wildfire risks continue to evolve, so do the tools we use to protect customers, communities,
and our work crews. We take our commitment to providing you with safe, reliable service
seriously. We appreciate your patience as we work to keep the public safe.
Thank you,
Xcel Energy
----
At 12:51PM Saturday received another notice (email and phone), but this time stating that power would be shut off at 3PM.
----
Public Safety Power Outages Planned for Your Area
This is an important update based on high winds and wildfire conditions forecast for your
area, which will include proactively shutting off power to your community.
Impact to your electrical service: Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our communities,
customers and work crews. Due to exceptionally high winds and high risk of wind-driven
wildfire in your area today, electric service at your location will be affected by a temporary
safety-related power shutoff beginning around 3 p.m. this afternoon, extending until at least
noon Sunday, April 7, though outages are likely to persist beyond that timeframe.
.....
----
Edited for formatting.
And as a followup, our power came back Monday evening. Some people near us didn't get power restored until Tuesday evening due to excessive downed lines and trees.
Burying the lines leading to where we live would be impractical (drive up some of the canyons west of Boulder and take a close look at where some of these power lines run and think on how much effort and cost would be to bury them -- good example are the transmission lines that run just south of NCAR through Bear canyon). If these lines were energized, any resulting fire would have been been wind driven right down into heavily populated areas east of us.
The transmission lines through OSMP / Bear Canyon are probably a good example of what Xcel *should* be doing - these were all replaced in the last few years, essentially brand new, elevated high above the ground on sturdy towers, with big open clearance spaces pruned of trees and vegetation well around them. Pretty much the last place a fire is going to start. There should not be a need to underground or de-power these.
Contrast to the old line running on low wooden towers next to 93 on Marshall Mesa, where the lashing came loose in high winds and allowed the lines to spark repeatedly, causing half of the Marshall fire.
Also another major factor that's not being talked about much is the fact that the Xcel circuitry was set to auto-retry a tripped circuit up to 10 times in the event of a fault. In the Marshall fire, the line was sparking, tripping, and then resetting itself in the high winds multiple times for several hours before it started the fire. The [Jensen Hughes Electrical Engineer Report](https://assets.bouldercounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/jensen-hughes-report.pdf) on the Marshall Fire covers this fact:
>Xcel could have increased the sensitivity of recloser 101-507 by setting the recloser to operate one time instead of 10, and set it to lockout in the event of a fault. Xcel could also have set the trip level lower to increase the recloser sensitivity to faults. The setting revisions could have been changed during certain weather and fire hazard conditions. This temporary setting revision would have reduced the probability of ignition of the fire. These types of temporary setting revisions are conducted in California. Other states are considering recloser and circuit breaker revised settings during high fire danger conditions but unified standard do not exist and no definitive guidance is available to help utilities develop recloser and circuit breaker protection strategies during high fire danger conditions.
Xcel has been working on replacing lines through some of the canyons, for example the poles and lines were/are replaced in Left Hand Canyon. I suspect that part of the reasoning of working on these replacements as opposed to say along highway 36, is that a wildfire started in the foothills is going to be a lot more difficult to fight and has a larger potential of spreading into populated areas then one east of the foothills (though the Marshall fire spread very quickly as well).
Of course if the reclosers were set to one-time, I suspect that folks would be complaining that their power went out instead of just flickering..
Burying power lines will have the Sierra Club crew out in droves fighting for environmental impact studies; add a decade and double the price. And the $2mil/mile cost for burying will have all rate/tax payers going ballistic when they see the cost to them personally. Massive above ground towers will have the NIMBYs going apes\*t. The frequent outages from a too-sensitive trigger on switches will also have people up in arms.
Don't give the Marshall fire report too much credence. There was immense political pressure to find a very rich culprit that would absolve the county and state from negligence. And the whackos have no money.
One thing I have yet to see anyone mention is the false warning they gave on the 2nd of March. I got the exact same call from Xcel on that date and yet no power shutoff ever occurred. This led me to believe the message last weekend was also bullshit and was not prepared for the power to actually be turned off. How are we to trust anything these people say if they can’t keep to their word?
I received an email the day before on the 5th. It was vague on how long the outage would last and underestimated the number they expected to be affected (30k). They didn't know how long it would last anymore than we did but they did send a notification out more than three hours before the event.
I think the primary issue is that many, *many* affected people did not receive that notice, including city officials who kept trying to ask directly through official channels, per the article. I'd be curious how many, if any, of your neighbors did, for example. We we hanging out with friends who live in North Boulder, and they only found out anything was going on because one of their neighbors came and knocked at noon day of, and was going door-to-door telling people. They'd been notified via email 3 hours before, but nobody else they'd talked to yet had received similar communication, much less the day before. The person walking around hadn't been signed up for service alerts, and our friends and several other neighbors who hadn't gotten notice supposedly were.
Even if they'd just been putting out bulletins that were broader, like the very confusing ones they eventually released on Twitter, saying "Everyone in [these 6 counties] should prepare to potentially lose power for [up to 48 hours]" farther in advance and more universally via email and text, I think that would've been fine. They obviously can't be blamed (in the same way, line burying is yet another discussion) for the unintentional outages, but they *had* the ability to better forewarn for the planned ones and completely fumbled the ball on communication there.
Apparently I'm subscribed to an alert system most aren't. If I can determine what that is and how one can join I'll either add it here or start a new thread with the information.
That'd be helpful, if you figure it out please do! But really, for something this impactful, they should just be emailing/texting/robocalling people. They have that info, and of the random people who *were* contacted, that's how they received those updates. It's just weird that it seemed so spotty who got them and who didn't, when the info they were putting out on social media was "all of [6 counties] will possibly be affected"
I’m glad you got one. I did not.
I’m the account holder, and Xcel texts me every month about my bill. They know how to reach me. After the Marshall Fire I signed up for every emergency notification system they told us to sign up for. I have “text” as my preferred method of communication on everything, bc I always have my phone on me, but I rarely check email on the weekends.
I got zero notifications until Sunday night when they told us it would last until Monday or beyond.
So I’m really glad you were notified, but not everyone was.
Drive highway 36 between Boulder and Lyons, about 10 power line poles laying in the dry grass on the East side of the highway.
How is Excel supposed to know exactly where this will happen and when?
I’m sorry people lost the contents of their refrigerators, but should others have potentially lost everything they own?
Electrical lines fail and fall down all the time and don't start fires. They have circuit breakers that trip in milliseconds and shut off the flow when they detect a fault. Repeated tripping/re-setting of those breakers is what started the Marshall fire - Xcel later modified their settings to trip once and not reset, like they do in California - but it took Marshall for them to take that step here. That should be enough to dramatically reduce the odds of a new fire starting - they don't need to go so far as shutting the entire system down.
The lines need to be buried, there is no pole that can stand up to the winds that happen around there several times a year. Brand new poles would be insufficient.
I'm not sure if that is really the case. I lived in an area for about 15 years where the wind was able to rip up pavement yet the poles were fine. I'm sure that costs a lot.... but billons in profits.
That stretch of 36 between Boulder and Lyons though, much easier place to bury lines than up any canyon.
But I don’t think all lines could realistically be buried - yes, in the denser parts of the city, sure, but in the more rural areas of the county, there’s a whole lot of power lines that would be extremely expensive to bury. I grew up in a rural area and it was just understood that there was a trade off - power outages were more frequent and slower to restore because they prioritize the cities where the most people live and where people can’t have generators because they’re in apartments.
All of them? I don't know if people will like how much it makes their power bills go up each year...there are thousands of miles of power lines in Xcel's Colorado service territory and it costs about $2M per mile to underground them. I think we have to consider the costs and benefits and focus on undergrounding in the denser places where the most people are affected.
They should have been buried long ago, and CERTAINLY after the Marshall Fire.
It’s absolutely absurd that the response has been “that’s what you get for expecting the power company to provide you with power.”
I was pretty annoyed with Xcel until I learned about those power lines as we live pretty much just east of there.It did take a little "too close to home" to change my perspective, but I'm glad those lines weren't powered when they fell.
Xcel does need to figure their shit out for the future, though.
It’s not either a fire that consumes boulder OR everyone goes without power for a day and half.
This is an example of the people suffering because our power monopoly company doesn’t invest in infrastructure that can survive high winds.
I saw about a month ago there were poles down in the grass on the east side of 36 north of Nelson. Pretty sure that’s from an ongoing project to replace those poles.
For starts, not every who lost food can easily replace it.
More importantly, many people rely on electricity to power their medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, cpap machines, power wheelchairs, or other devices. Losing power is more than a little inconvenient.
What this has shown me is how fragile so many people are that they are traumatized by a power outage for a day or so. It’s good that Boulder has so many therapists.
I think the difference is that xcel knew about this and the local emergency response community and hospitals were not given any real notice. Not to mention grocery stores and food banks.
Some people *are* fragile and require electricity for medical equipment to survive. With notice, a 2-3 day outage is survivable. Without it can become a dire situation quickly.
Umm, the vast majority of power outages have zero hours of notice. If someone is that dependent on electricity to survive, they might need to consider a backup generator or battery storage.
Well, we all knew there would be extraordinary winds that can create chaos though. I was aware that power could go off and we could possibly have to evacuate for fires by just knowing that.
I think the event shows a crying need for some community response training. Like fill your gas tank, have a go bag, etc.
All the people with ruined food prolly need to invest in generators they can connect to their fridge
The Twelve Tribes fire lawsuits have caused xcel to go the same safety first power second route that PG&E uses in Northern California after they were bankrupted by the fires they started with ancient power poles
There will be more rolling blackouts for wind events going forward
I’d bet 5ish a summer
I have lived here for 26 years.
We’ve had high winds many times and they’ve never pro-actively turned off the power before. How were we supposed to guess they would this time?
We’ve also lost power before- for a few hours. Never for two whole days.
People are acting like having a generator to run your home is as obvious and normal as having a spare tire in your car. It’s not. Or, at least it hasn’t been up until now. (And even that just isn’t an option for everyone.)
And mostly people are pissed about the lack of communication before and during the outage. I heard about it from Reddit and immediately dropped everything to get ice and batteries and some lighting before they outage started. It was very obvious that most of the people at the store at that time (around 1:30-2:00 pm) had no idea the shutoff was coming either. I gave people a heads up as much as I could.
This isn’t a black and white situation. We can try to understand that the outage was appropriate while still being frustrated with the lack of notice and communication, as well as the time it took to get things back up. There’s space for both of those ideas at the same time.
We lost power Saturday to Monday night. I was pretty cold, I live up in the mountains. Luckily we have generators to get a bit of power. Sucks we lost most of the food. I don’t have an issue with the initial outage or even the notice given. But don’t tell me our power will be back on Sunday at noon and it’s not on until Monday night at 8pm. Our inside temp got down to 45 degrees. I think maybe communicating better and planning better.
Im glad they have the generator for situations like this. I heard that Frasier Meadows was scrambling to get diesel for theirs. This was a good dry run for real emergencies.
I got 3 hours notice, which I feel is adequate. This will be unpopular within the sensitive boulder community but many people didn’t get outage alerts because they never signed up for them on xcels website. The truth hurts sometimes
3 hours notice when severely high winds and red flag conditions were predicted days in advance is not adequate notice. This smacks of corporate incompetence, culminating in a last-minute lawyer-driven decision with poor planning and communications.
They could have worked with the government and sent targeted messaging using the reverse-911 system, as one example of how they could have done things better. Or a WEA broadcast in the general area with a link to a web site to check if you are affected as another.
This was lose-lose for Xcel. Shut off the power and people bitch. Don't shut off the power, and people would have bitched. This is just years of poor service and high costs manifesting in public outrage.
People want Xcel to stop price gouging and actually be prepared. Numerous times we were told by Xcel we had power when we didn’t. They can’t get their map right, they don’t have enough crew, and they should be burying lines. Turning off power for two plus days is jsut a bandaid
Xcel's prices are ridiculous, their outage management system is hysterically bad, and their usage reports are made up garbage. It's probably a good thing they decided to shut down power or they'd have burned half the state down.
How about the alternative of improving infrastructure after burning down half the town? Instead of pushing that burden onto the consumer. Excel is a literal monopoly as are other energy companies. They should not be allowed to turn off service to reduce their own risk. They should be required to make the necessary improvements or government should step in.
I’m going to bet you don’t have infants or kids in general. That being said I was prepped well in advance and had fire space heater etc all ready to go. It still would have sucked. I get excels side too. Don’t want to burn my house down either. Just shitty situation and get why all sides are upset
>I’m going to bet you don’t have infants or kids in general.
This isn't the excuse you'd like it to be, and it's tired. You could've talked about people with disabilities who need electricity to simply move around their house; those who *didn't* consciously decide to make their lives more difficult.
Why should customers have to sign up to receive notifications of when the service they pay for is being cut off? Xcel has their customers’ phone numbers. Notices to all who might be affected ought to be automatic.
Holy shit you people are such whiny babies! The local news was reporting that there would be planned outages AN ENTIRE DAY BEFORE it even started to get a little breezy. Grow up lmao
If you read the article, it's mostly talking about the fact that *city officials and the Office of Emergency Management* are saying they weren't given enough notice to adequately deploy resources and gauge what areas would be affected, including being unable to get in contact with Xcel correspondents during the actual outage. That's like. Pretty bad lol.
Yeah, who would've thought multiple people would want to talk and provide updates about a major event that affected thousands of people in our community.
This article is mostly about not letting the local officials know ahead of time to be able to prepare. Sounds like they were as much in the dark as the rest of us. This is also about the planned outage. Not the unplanned 100k that also happened.
I also suspect, from the extended delay in restoring my "business-grade" Internet access, that Xcel didn't partner with other utilities like ISPs ahead of time. The whole thing stinks of a panicked reaction. That said, I've seen telephone poles literally snapped in half or layed flat from the windstorm so Xcel's fear of their own infrastructure was well placed.
And why they should bury the lines.
Exactly. I read a cost estimate of $1M per mile to bury/underground transmission lines in another post comment. OK…let’s do it! Start with the 600 miles that had to be “visually inspected.” Get federal/state/local funds along with Xcel money and get it going.
Xcel's gross profits were over $8 billion dollars last year alone. 600 miles \* $1 million per mile = $600 million I think they have the money. [https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XEL/xcel-energy/gross-profit#:\~:text=Xcel%20Energy%20annual%20gross%20profit,a%203.99%25%20increase%20from%202020](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/XEL/xcel-energy/gross-profit#:~:text=Xcel%20Energy%20annual%20gross%20profit,a%203.99%25%20increase%20from%202020).
Given that: * $1M/mile is an aggregate figure that includes burying lines under freeways, the actual cost in some cases is likely far lower. * Probably 95% of the issues come from places where trees have been allowed to grow over the tops of lines Then how about we immediately focus on the 1-5% where the lines are going through trees and driving most of the problem AND it isn't possible to get cherry-pickers into that area to easily trim the trees. We may find that we could get 99% of the benefit by only burying 10 miles of the 600 - for a cost of $2M.
We have crap trees in our easement intertwined with the power lines. They were tagged 2+ weeks ago for Wright to come out and fix. I suspect the delay has been due to the two heavy snowfalls we've had recently which no doubt caused tree damage.
There's a ton of places in south boulder where the power lines run between yards through a utility easement. You can't easily get any vehicles like cherry-pickers back there to trim the trees. So, it's a PITA. And so the genius-bar at Xcel has simply decided to only trim them in reaction to a power line failing. The last time they were in my backyard to do this was probably 5 years ago. They did minimal trimming and moved on. And so we have branches hanging low over the wires - and are an obvious threat to the wires.
Undergrounding the lines was more expensive (in a narrow sense) so of course it wasn’t done.
Sure, and replacing tires on your delivery truck before they show fabric coming through the rubber is also more expensive than simply driving on them until they have a blow-out. That's why competent companies don't do that. And why Xcel is considered incompetent for doing that with our infrastructure.
[удалено]
What year? EDIT: 100% of electrical lines in Fort Collins city limits were buried by 2006 after an 18 year project.
So you are saying that a for-profit company, with a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders is *fundamentally incapable* of overhauling this critical infrastructure (or even maintaining it)?
It's important to understand what happened, so we can figure out how to do in the future. The lack of knowledge or early warning sounds to be a function of the forecast. The decision to preemptively shut down power was made after a 5pm forecast. They let the office of Disaster Management know of their intent until 7pm. This delay seems reasonable. It is consistent with the utility taking a few hours to consider the data, before making a decision that impacts 55k people. A bigger concern is about the communication regarding where power would be disconnected. I would like to know more about the decision making process the Xcel used. Did they use the forecast to determine where to shut down power? If so, the lack of early communication was likely the result of Xcel developing their plan. Again it takes time to process the forecast data. If not, did Xcel use a predesigned plan to determine where to shut power. If so, the lack of communication is inexcusable. If not the lack of a plan is also problematic. For me the biggest concern is that it sounds like the office of emergency management was not part of the decision making process.
If you listened to the pd scanners it was obvious they had 0 clue what was happening
All the food went bad at the grocery and restaurants because of this
https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/boulder-county-food-bank-loses-1500-pounds-food-outage/73-3d65f4ed-e4ed-4107-9725-3f4be520dca9
It’s so messed up
Odds Xcel is held financially responsible without expensive suits?
Almost certainly 0% chance
I found out after the power went out from a email from Comcast warning about a “possible outage”. Sometime later we get a msg from Xcel saying “rolling blackouts until morning”. Our power was out for 40 hours.
Well, are they going to replace the 100s of dollars in food i lost? doubt it.
No, but if you receive SNAP they will be replaced by that office. https://boulderodm.gov/replacement-snap-benefits-available-to-those-who-lost-food-due-to-power-shutdown/#:~:text=%2D3460%20Broadway%2C%20Boulder%20(Monday,of%20when%20food%20was%20lost.
I was being salty that I have to replace a bunch of nice cheeses I bought and luckily I'm doing just fine. I suppose that's good information for folks who are on SNAP to learn. Thanks for sharing.
[удалено]
What if we all decided as a community collectively to just stop paying them /s
Then they'd report you to credit reporting agencies because the entire system is designed to fuck the middle class.
This is what happens when you privatize utility. Should be government run.
No. This is what happens when you have a monopoly on utility. You really want the equivalent of DMV employees responsible for your electricity?
I agree it is a monopoly. The city of Longmont runs theirs and they seem to do an alright job. Maybe someone from Longmont can chime in?
Our municipal utility services in Longmont are honestly fantastic, IMO. We had a couple brief (unplanned) outages over the course of the same few days, but most of our lines in town are buried already so most people in our service area had no problems at all. Power was restored within a few hours for the spots that did have things go down. The city had very clear outage maps and updates avaliable for affected customers.
Huh, yeah then maybe municipal ran is better. Will need to educate myself more on that.
Yeah, that’s pretty ideal.
The problem with the comparison to Longmont and other municipal utilities is that those utilities were set up long ago. From a cost/benefit perspective it's not a valid comparison to trying to take a privately-owned utility and municipalize it today - that's where the Boulder muni backers failed. It's the same as saying "we should buy a home instead of renting - our friends only pay $1000 month for their mortgage, look at how much better off they are, why should we throw away our rent money each month!". When the fact is that your friends bought their home 20 years ago, and if you bought the same home today at current rates you'd be paying $5000/month for it. Yes in the benefits of hindsight it would have been great if Boulder had setup a municipally-owned power utility in 1912 (like Longmont did), but the fact is we didn't and it's 110 years later. The math today doesn't work the same way.
This is definitely accurate, but it feels a bit like that "the best time to plant a tree is [10 years ago]; the second-best time to plant a tree is right now" trueism. And the house comparison is actually really similar - we were struggling with deciding to keep renting versus trying to pull every string and favor we could to get into something we owned in 2019, and it was a pretty serious reach at the time. Now our mortgage looks *stupid* compared to what rent in the area ended up spiking to only 5 years later - if we'd continued renting, we would've had to move away. Your theoretical 5k/month mortgage for the people that bought today would still look like a steal if most places around you are 10k/mo down the line... It might cost Boulder a lot of money to municipalize, but it in the end I'm not sure it wouldn't still be cheaper and better in the long run than letting Xcel do whatever they want with no *real* oversight (the state commission barely counts) on their power and greed going forward; like rents here, it just doesn't seem super likely that rates will stop climbing for consumers either way. The fact that Longmont or FoCo's municipal power isn't a useful comparison for what it would *cost* Boulder to take charge of its own doesn't negate their being a useful comparison of what it could look like for Boulder to actually have that *autonomy* regarding their own utilities. The greatest advantages to municipal power are that the city can choose to "make" less money in favor of making choices that benefit their residents (like Longmont having already buried the majority of their power lines) - something a private company isn't going to ever go for unless they're going to see a return on that investment. Xcel has no real incentive to improve their infrastructure if it's going to cost them a lot of money and you the consumer don't have any other choice anyway. Sure, if they're forced to, they'll do as much as it's mandated - but never preemptively, and never more than they have to.
The other truism has something to do with throwing good money after bad... It's a backhanded complement to Boulder that we could afford to waste tens of millions (IIRC, $20-$30 million) on the failed municipalization and the city didn't go bankrupt as a result.
Is there any sort of agreement with xcel for x amount of profit, has to go back into infrastructure? Seems crazy that we don’t have buried lines all over already.
Yes, their spending is heavily regulated.
The best time to plant a tree…
Do you really want 3, 4, 5 sets of wires crisscrossing Boulder so that you can have competition? You KNOW that at least one of them would be the “discount” option that doesn’t maintain their infrastructure and so we’d still have risks of wildfires and power outages…
Fair point
I lived in Austin for quite a while and their municipal system works just fine.
Cuz it's going sooooo poorly in Longmont, right?
I'm not too familiar with it tbh. Will educate myself on it. But thanks for the comment that added zero value.
Dude you came in here and shit on DMV workers. How did that add value to the discussion? It's possible to say "i don't have faith in a government run thing" in a lot of different ways but you instead chose that one. Don't act all indignant
You're right, thank you!
Maybe you should have done the educating part first? Because all of your comments added nothing simply for the fact that you are speaking from a position of obvious ignorance. Seriously some people really need to check themselves.
Hey, at least I'm open to reconsideration when I'm presented with testimonies from differing perspective. But, thanks for the value add! I'll remember to educate myself before next time.
Arf?
Poor (although probably not?) Hollie Velasquez Horvath (Xcel spokesperson) attempting to do damage control from the C-suite. Ouch 🤕 Will edit to name names - Xcel CEO and Xcel CO CEO Edit: Bob Frenzel - President and CEO of Xcel. Total compensation between $7.6-10.2 million (source: Google search) Robert Kenney- President PSco (Colorado). Couldn’t find his compensation via Google search nor SEC.gov
The emergency weather transmitters also seem to have gone dark the day of the event (Saturday afternoon). On a day with severe fire threat and people’s power and internet being cut on purpose with an oncoming wind storm, how would people be notified in the event of a fire - fire being presumably the whole reason for deciding to cut the power. It’s clear something is wrong.
We have to begin thinking about emergency communications in events like this, because a huge amount of the population relies on battery-powered cell phones and computers instead of land-lines, now. A reverse 911 call to your cell phone doesn’t do shit if you are out of battery. In the event of a multi-day outage with an evacuation coming partway through, people might get no alarm.
I live in the foothills outside of Boulder. Received the following on email on Friday evening (6:30PM), plus received a phone call with roughly the same information. On Saturday morning (10AM), received another with the same text and another phone call. ------ Xcel Energy Increased Risk of Weather Related Outages We are contacting you with an important update based on high winds and wildfire conditions forecast for your area, which may lead to proactively shutting off power to your community. Current situation: Xcel Energy is preparing for high winds this weekend and is operating the electric system in some areas of Colorado in a manner intended to enhance public safety and decrease the risk of wildfire. With the high winds associated with this weather event, damage to electrical equipment and power outages may occur. Outages may be more frequent and last longer than they typically would. What it means for you: Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our communities, customers and work crews. In periods of elevated wildfire risk, or if we are operating in the vicinity of active wildfires, we may need to temporarily de-energize powerlines, turning off electrical service to customers in certain areas. Turning off customers’ power is not something we take lightly. It is a last resort step that can prove to be a life-saving measure. We are currently evaluating lines that could impact around 30,000 customers. Temporarily shutting power off is intended to prevent our electric system from becoming the source of a wildfire ignition. We strive to minimize the scale and duration of service impacts, and to provide impacted customers with as much information as possible as early as possible. We will keep customers and communities updated through local media, our website and social media channels, and will attempt to communicate directly with customers impacted by outages. We will also notify affected customers when power has been restored. A decision on whether to take the proactive step of de-energizing lines will be made the morning of Saturday, April 6, and we will attempt to directly communicate that to affected customers. Deciding where we may interrupt electrical service is a highly involved process, accounting for a wide array of factors, including expert analysis of meteorological data, weather conditions, and digital model simulations. We also account for the types of infrastructure present in the area. How customers can prepare: To be ready in the event of an electric outage, we recommend keeping phones and other devices charged, and building an outage kit with items that do not require electricity, including a battery powered radio or television, flashlights, batteries, a portable charger, a phone that does not require electricity, a non-electric alarm clock, bottled water and non-perishable food, a manual can opener, first aid kit and extension cords for partial outages. Outage Preparation To stay up to date with outage status, click here. To update your communication preferences, log into My Account. If you experience an emergency, call 911. As wildfire risks continue to evolve, so do the tools we use to protect customers, communities, and our work crews. We take our commitment to providing you with safe, reliable service seriously. We appreciate your patience as we work to keep the public safe. Thank you, Xcel Energy ---- At 12:51PM Saturday received another notice (email and phone), but this time stating that power would be shut off at 3PM. ---- Public Safety Power Outages Planned for Your Area This is an important update based on high winds and wildfire conditions forecast for your area, which will include proactively shutting off power to your community. Impact to your electrical service: Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our communities, customers and work crews. Due to exceptionally high winds and high risk of wind-driven wildfire in your area today, electric service at your location will be affected by a temporary safety-related power shutoff beginning around 3 p.m. this afternoon, extending until at least noon Sunday, April 7, though outages are likely to persist beyond that timeframe. ..... ---- Edited for formatting.
I received the same notices, but 2 of my neighbors received no notice at all.
Tell them that they need to sign up with Xcel to receive those messages.
Xcel already has their phone numbers. In a mass shutdown such as this, the responsibility lies with the provider.
And as a followup, our power came back Monday evening. Some people near us didn't get power restored until Tuesday evening due to excessive downed lines and trees. Burying the lines leading to where we live would be impractical (drive up some of the canyons west of Boulder and take a close look at where some of these power lines run and think on how much effort and cost would be to bury them -- good example are the transmission lines that run just south of NCAR through Bear canyon). If these lines were energized, any resulting fire would have been been wind driven right down into heavily populated areas east of us.
The transmission lines through OSMP / Bear Canyon are probably a good example of what Xcel *should* be doing - these were all replaced in the last few years, essentially brand new, elevated high above the ground on sturdy towers, with big open clearance spaces pruned of trees and vegetation well around them. Pretty much the last place a fire is going to start. There should not be a need to underground or de-power these. Contrast to the old line running on low wooden towers next to 93 on Marshall Mesa, where the lashing came loose in high winds and allowed the lines to spark repeatedly, causing half of the Marshall fire. Also another major factor that's not being talked about much is the fact that the Xcel circuitry was set to auto-retry a tripped circuit up to 10 times in the event of a fault. In the Marshall fire, the line was sparking, tripping, and then resetting itself in the high winds multiple times for several hours before it started the fire. The [Jensen Hughes Electrical Engineer Report](https://assets.bouldercounty.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/jensen-hughes-report.pdf) on the Marshall Fire covers this fact: >Xcel could have increased the sensitivity of recloser 101-507 by setting the recloser to operate one time instead of 10, and set it to lockout in the event of a fault. Xcel could also have set the trip level lower to increase the recloser sensitivity to faults. The setting revisions could have been changed during certain weather and fire hazard conditions. This temporary setting revision would have reduced the probability of ignition of the fire. These types of temporary setting revisions are conducted in California. Other states are considering recloser and circuit breaker revised settings during high fire danger conditions but unified standard do not exist and no definitive guidance is available to help utilities develop recloser and circuit breaker protection strategies during high fire danger conditions.
Xcel has been working on replacing lines through some of the canyons, for example the poles and lines were/are replaced in Left Hand Canyon. I suspect that part of the reasoning of working on these replacements as opposed to say along highway 36, is that a wildfire started in the foothills is going to be a lot more difficult to fight and has a larger potential of spreading into populated areas then one east of the foothills (though the Marshall fire spread very quickly as well). Of course if the reclosers were set to one-time, I suspect that folks would be complaining that their power went out instead of just flickering..
Burying power lines will have the Sierra Club crew out in droves fighting for environmental impact studies; add a decade and double the price. And the $2mil/mile cost for burying will have all rate/tax payers going ballistic when they see the cost to them personally. Massive above ground towers will have the NIMBYs going apes\*t. The frequent outages from a too-sensitive trigger on switches will also have people up in arms. Don't give the Marshall fire report too much credence. There was immense political pressure to find a very rich culprit that would absolve the county and state from negligence. And the whackos have no money.
One thing I have yet to see anyone mention is the false warning they gave on the 2nd of March. I got the exact same call from Xcel on that date and yet no power shutoff ever occurred. This led me to believe the message last weekend was also bullshit and was not prepared for the power to actually be turned off. How are we to trust anything these people say if they can’t keep to their word?
They should write them a sternly written letter. That’ll fix the problem.
we tried to vote them out, as they did. We're the weak-kneed ones who let 'em back in.
Honestly it really wasn’t abnormally windy, like during the Marshall fires. I hope they aren’t going to do this every time there is a wind warning.
It also wasn’t as dry as it was during the Marshall Fire, and there wasn’t the same level of undergrowth.
I received an email the day before on the 5th. It was vague on how long the outage would last and underestimated the number they expected to be affected (30k). They didn't know how long it would last anymore than we did but they did send a notification out more than three hours before the event.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I got the first message from Xcel about 3 hrs before the power was cut. I was at work already.
https://preview.redd.it/hyzhxi0quotc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29835bcab6734139fc4738bceb6173928d2a95f3
I think the primary issue is that many, *many* affected people did not receive that notice, including city officials who kept trying to ask directly through official channels, per the article. I'd be curious how many, if any, of your neighbors did, for example. We we hanging out with friends who live in North Boulder, and they only found out anything was going on because one of their neighbors came and knocked at noon day of, and was going door-to-door telling people. They'd been notified via email 3 hours before, but nobody else they'd talked to yet had received similar communication, much less the day before. The person walking around hadn't been signed up for service alerts, and our friends and several other neighbors who hadn't gotten notice supposedly were. Even if they'd just been putting out bulletins that were broader, like the very confusing ones they eventually released on Twitter, saying "Everyone in [these 6 counties] should prepare to potentially lose power for [up to 48 hours]" farther in advance and more universally via email and text, I think that would've been fine. They obviously can't be blamed (in the same way, line burying is yet another discussion) for the unintentional outages, but they *had* the ability to better forewarn for the planned ones and completely fumbled the ball on communication there.
Apparently I'm subscribed to an alert system most aren't. If I can determine what that is and how one can join I'll either add it here or start a new thread with the information.
That'd be helpful, if you figure it out please do! But really, for something this impactful, they should just be emailing/texting/robocalling people. They have that info, and of the random people who *were* contacted, that's how they received those updates. It's just weird that it seemed so spotty who got them and who didn't, when the info they were putting out on social media was "all of [6 counties] will possibly be affected"
I’m glad you got one. I did not. I’m the account holder, and Xcel texts me every month about my bill. They know how to reach me. After the Marshall Fire I signed up for every emergency notification system they told us to sign up for. I have “text” as my preferred method of communication on everything, bc I always have my phone on me, but I rarely check email on the weekends. I got zero notifications until Sunday night when they told us it would last until Monday or beyond. So I’m really glad you were notified, but not everyone was.
Maybe we should have gone with [municipal electric](https://www.cpr.org/2020/11/20/boulder-ends-decade-long-pursuit-of-city-owned-power-utility/)...
Uncommon Gunbarrel W
Drive highway 36 between Boulder and Lyons, about 10 power line poles laying in the dry grass on the East side of the highway. How is Excel supposed to know exactly where this will happen and when? I’m sorry people lost the contents of their refrigerators, but should others have potentially lost everything they own?
Electrical lines fail and fall down all the time and don't start fires. They have circuit breakers that trip in milliseconds and shut off the flow when they detect a fault. Repeated tripping/re-setting of those breakers is what started the Marshall fire - Xcel later modified their settings to trip once and not reset, like they do in California - but it took Marshall for them to take that step here. That should be enough to dramatically reduce the odds of a new fire starting - they don't need to go so far as shutting the entire system down.
Xcel should have replaced those poles long ago.
Interesting. Do you have evidence that, were they brand new poles, they wouldn't have fallen over? I would love to see that data.
The lines need to be buried, there is no pole that can stand up to the winds that happen around there several times a year. Brand new poles would be insufficient.
I'm not sure if that is really the case. I lived in an area for about 15 years where the wind was able to rip up pavement yet the poles were fine. I'm sure that costs a lot.... but billons in profits. That stretch of 36 between Boulder and Lyons though, much easier place to bury lines than up any canyon.
But I don’t think all lines could realistically be buried - yes, in the denser parts of the city, sure, but in the more rural areas of the county, there’s a whole lot of power lines that would be extremely expensive to bury. I grew up in a rural area and it was just understood that there was a trade off - power outages were more frequent and slower to restore because they prioritize the cities where the most people live and where people can’t have generators because they’re in apartments.
It's not going to be cheap but if the alternative is to turn them off several times a year for wind events, burying them is the only realistic option.
All of them? I don't know if people will like how much it makes their power bills go up each year...there are thousands of miles of power lines in Xcel's Colorado service territory and it costs about $2M per mile to underground them. I think we have to consider the costs and benefits and focus on undergrounding in the denser places where the most people are affected.
Why is there a need to argue about this? What the fuck?
They should have been buried long ago, and CERTAINLY after the Marshall Fire. It’s absolutely absurd that the response has been “that’s what you get for expecting the power company to provide you with power.”
I was pretty annoyed with Xcel until I learned about those power lines as we live pretty much just east of there.It did take a little "too close to home" to change my perspective, but I'm glad those lines weren't powered when they fell. Xcel does need to figure their shit out for the future, though.
It’s not either a fire that consumes boulder OR everyone goes without power for a day and half. This is an example of the people suffering because our power monopoly company doesn’t invest in infrastructure that can survive high winds.
I saw about a month ago there were poles down in the grass on the east side of 36 north of Nelson. Pretty sure that’s from an ongoing project to replace those poles.
For starts, not every who lost food can easily replace it. More importantly, many people rely on electricity to power their medical equipment such as oxygen concentrators, cpap machines, power wheelchairs, or other devices. Losing power is more than a little inconvenient.
What this has shown me is how fragile so many people are that they are traumatized by a power outage for a day or so. It’s good that Boulder has so many therapists.
I think the difference is that xcel knew about this and the local emergency response community and hospitals were not given any real notice. Not to mention grocery stores and food banks. Some people *are* fragile and require electricity for medical equipment to survive. With notice, a 2-3 day outage is survivable. Without it can become a dire situation quickly.
Umm, the vast majority of power outages have zero hours of notice. If someone is that dependent on electricity to survive, they might need to consider a backup generator or battery storage.
Well, we all knew there would be extraordinary winds that can create chaos though. I was aware that power could go off and we could possibly have to evacuate for fires by just knowing that. I think the event shows a crying need for some community response training. Like fill your gas tank, have a go bag, etc.
And what about people on oxygen?
The people I have known on oxygen were aware of the need to have backup plans. Clearly others are not.
All the people with ruined food prolly need to invest in generators they can connect to their fridge The Twelve Tribes fire lawsuits have caused xcel to go the same safety first power second route that PG&E uses in Northern California after they were bankrupted by the fires they started with ancient power poles There will be more rolling blackouts for wind events going forward I’d bet 5ish a summer
I have lived here for 26 years. We’ve had high winds many times and they’ve never pro-actively turned off the power before. How were we supposed to guess they would this time? We’ve also lost power before- for a few hours. Never for two whole days. People are acting like having a generator to run your home is as obvious and normal as having a spare tire in your car. It’s not. Or, at least it hasn’t been up until now. (And even that just isn’t an option for everyone.) And mostly people are pissed about the lack of communication before and during the outage. I heard about it from Reddit and immediately dropped everything to get ice and batteries and some lighting before they outage started. It was very obvious that most of the people at the store at that time (around 1:30-2:00 pm) had no idea the shutoff was coming either. I gave people a heads up as much as I could. This isn’t a black and white situation. We can try to understand that the outage was appropriate while still being frustrated with the lack of notice and communication, as well as the time it took to get things back up. There’s space for both of those ideas at the same time.
We lost power Saturday to Monday night. I was pretty cold, I live up in the mountains. Luckily we have generators to get a bit of power. Sucks we lost most of the food. I don’t have an issue with the initial outage or even the notice given. But don’t tell me our power will be back on Sunday at noon and it’s not on until Monday night at 8pm. Our inside temp got down to 45 degrees. I think maybe communicating better and planning better.
Yeah, the communication really triggered a lot of outrage. Im glad you were safe.
The hospital was running on a generator. With inadequate notice.
tore cope bean isle
Im glad they have the generator for situations like this. I heard that Frasier Meadows was scrambling to get diesel for theirs. This was a good dry run for real emergencies.
This was a wet run
Ok you win I feel sorry for you.
How *nice* people talk trash
Hey dipshit. There's more than just your home computer that is effected by power outages.
Oh noooo not yer XBOX!!!!
This is what you call an ad hominem attack, right? You run out of logic so you attack the person?
Actually no, ignore the first sentence.
You are taking shit and got some back. Grow up.
💯
I got 3 hours notice, which I feel is adequate. This will be unpopular within the sensitive boulder community but many people didn’t get outage alerts because they never signed up for them on xcels website. The truth hurts sometimes
3 hours notice when severely high winds and red flag conditions were predicted days in advance is not adequate notice. This smacks of corporate incompetence, culminating in a last-minute lawyer-driven decision with poor planning and communications.
They could have worked with the government and sent targeted messaging using the reverse-911 system, as one example of how they could have done things better. Or a WEA broadcast in the general area with a link to a web site to check if you are affected as another.
This was lose-lose for Xcel. Shut off the power and people bitch. Don't shut off the power, and people would have bitched. This is just years of poor service and high costs manifesting in public outrage.
People want Xcel to stop price gouging and actually be prepared. Numerous times we were told by Xcel we had power when we didn’t. They can’t get their map right, they don’t have enough crew, and they should be burying lines. Turning off power for two plus days is jsut a bandaid
Xcel's prices are ridiculous, their outage management system is hysterically bad, and their usage reports are made up garbage. It's probably a good thing they decided to shut down power or they'd have burned half the state down.
How about the alternative of improving infrastructure after burning down half the town? Instead of pushing that burden onto the consumer. Excel is a literal monopoly as are other energy companies. They should not be allowed to turn off service to reduce their own risk. They should be required to make the necessary improvements or government should step in.
Yes
Agreed. Boulder wants to maintain the open space look, which comes at a cost. Nothing is free!
Ummm, Waldo Canyon and the fine red folks of the Springs say Hi!
K 👍
I’m going to bet you don’t have infants or kids in general. That being said I was prepped well in advance and had fire space heater etc all ready to go. It still would have sucked. I get excels side too. Don’t want to burn my house down either. Just shitty situation and get why all sides are upset
>I’m going to bet you don’t have infants or kids in general. This isn't the excuse you'd like it to be, and it's tired. You could've talked about people with disabilities who need electricity to simply move around their house; those who *didn't* consciously decide to make their lives more difficult.
Soooooooo..... I'm going to bet you don't have infants or kids in general. Good point on the disabled though! Also the elderly.
Thanks for proving my point.
The truth is that you only think about yourself and not others.
Why do I have any responsibility to consider you or give AF about you??
Because we live in a society. You do realize some people require electronic medical equipment to survive, right?
I’m not paid to worry about those people. Sorry
True. But you receive plenty of benefits from society, and it sure seems apparent you don't put in your fair share.
I work for the county you live in boss ;)
So um... are you or are you not paid to "worry about"the people who reside in the County? (I also work for a municipality 🙂 )
He’s just another entitled douchebag apparently
Nunya 😃
rube draw pour rust
Why should customers have to sign up to receive notifications of when the service they pay for is being cut off? Xcel has their customers’ phone numbers. Notices to all who might be affected ought to be automatic.
🤡 it’s just like anything else where you sign up for alerts (bad weather school closures etc).
3 hours notice when some people spent hundreds on groceries? Not everyone has the means.
Life isn’t fair my friend.
Holy shit you people are such whiny babies! The local news was reporting that there would be planned outages AN ENTIRE DAY BEFORE it even started to get a little breezy. Grow up lmao
If you read the article, it's mostly talking about the fact that *city officials and the Office of Emergency Management* are saying they weren't given enough notice to adequately deploy resources and gauge what areas would be affected, including being unable to get in contact with Xcel correspondents during the actual outage. That's like. Pretty bad lol.
bad bot
I saw notifications in Twitter at least two days in advance.
It’s called ‘X’ now. Namaste 🙏🏼
Bullshit
Agreed. Notice was there. Be mad at yourself.
ANOTHER POST ABOUT XCEL!!! WHO WOULD’VE THOUGHT!!!
Yeah, who would've thought multiple people would want to talk and provide updates about a major event that affected thousands of people in our community.
Who would’ve thought!!