Over the weekend, with forecasts predicting potentially dangerous wind gusts nearing 100 miles per hour in Boulder, the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless made special arrangements to sleep more people. About 175 people showed up for a place to sleep on Saturday night, a shelter spokesman said.
Accommodating that many people became more complicated when the power went out. Xcel Energy cut off electricity to the shelter as part of a larger effort aimed at reducing the risk of its live equipment sparking a wildfire. The shelter was notified of the outage about an hour before it was cut.
“It was quite a scramble,” Andy Schultheiss, a spokesperson for the shelter, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “It was the closest we have ever come to not opening for the night” in about two decades, he added.
Staff went to Home Depot to purchase flashlights, which were then donated to the shelter by the store’s manager. A city official brought over his personal power generator. Even so, they couldn’t use the washing machines, so they were short on clean bedding. Unable to cook food, they bought boxes of chips. They still didn’t have enough to feed everyone.
“One of the main purposes the shelter serves is to feed people who maybe haven’t eaten all day,” Schultheiss said. “Folks were grateful to be inside. But a lot of them went hungry.”
Xcel Energy cut off power to about 55,000 customers, mainly in Boulder County, this past weekend in its first planned wildfire safety outage in Colorado. The electric grid’s outdated and complex structure resulted in a perplexing array of outages, with even neighboring homes affected differently. Crucial facilities like Foothills Hospital, Frasier Meadows assisted living facility, Boulder Valley schools and the homeless shelter weren’t prepped in advance.
Read: Why did your neighbor have power and you didn’t? Boulder’s grid complexity exacerbates confusion over Xcel Energy’s wildfire safety outages
The city said it also lacked time to discuss with Xcel about the vulnerability of its wastewater system, powered by two substations that both lost power and nearly led to sewage spilling into Boulder Creek. Restaurants face significant losses due to spoiled food and lost wages. The Community Food Share food bank lost 1,500 pounds of food amid record-high community need. Alerts were inconsistently sent and were only issued in English instead of both Spanish and English like many emergency government communications.
An additional 100,000 customers experienced power outages due to wind damage that snapped power lines, according to Xcel, underscoring the real risk of wildfire. Many affected residents and businesses expressed support for preemptive measures to prevent a wildfire, especially in the wake of Dec. 30, 2021 Marshall Fire, allegedly sparked in part by an Xcel line dislodged by strong winds, though Xcel denies this claim.
But the stories emerging suggest a significant communications breakdown, which many believe was avoidable.Elected officials are now publicly criticizing the utility and demanding answers.
State Rep. Junie Joseph said Xcel’s notifications pre-outage were “wholly inadequate.” Councilmember Mark Wallach said the utility’s response to the strong winds was “bollixed.” Boulder County’s commissioners said they want Xcel to provide “clearer and more proactive communications” in the future. In a meeting with the Boulder Chamber this week, one business owner described it as “the biggest sh*tshow of all time.”
Rep. Judy Amabile and Senate President Steve Fenberg stated in a news release on April 9 that they have been speaking to the Public Utilities Commission, which regulates utilities in Colorado, and that they expect “swift and meaningful action.” The commission is gathering public comments in order to “determine whether new regulatory approaches are necessary for precautionary outages.”
In an April 9 letter to Xcel, Gov. Jared Polis said he is calling on the PUC to “immediately open a formal docket to fully understand the failures of this past week, and to also consider adopting emergency rules that would put in place a higher bar and immediate outreach and notification requirements for planned outages as an interim solution until a long-term strategy is in place.” He is also directing the PUC to “put in place guardrails” to ensure planned outages only occur “when consistent with the public interest and when absolutely necessary,” among other requests.
Facilities and businesses in Boulder were left scrambling.
Frasier Meadows, a retirement community that provides assisted living and nursing services to about 500 older adults, had just one hour and 15 minutes to prepare for the outage, according to Christie Hinrichs, president and CEO of Frasier Meadows.
“We actually learned about the outage from staff and residents who had seen it on social media,” Hinrichs told Boulder Reporting Lab.
“We were literally surrounded by the church, Safeway, neighbors who all had power, and we didn’t,” she added.
She said the organization fired up generators and called in additional staff to stay throughout the night. They lost perishable food. Many of the residents, some of whom are in memory care, were confused. Food services were cut.
“We had to stop dining for our independent living residents. We suspended it completely Saturday evening and Sunday. We were able to continue with kind of limited services for our assisted living memory care and skilled nursing. But again, it just was very, very difficult to get all that done in a short amount of time,” Hinrichs said.
Hosea Rosenberg, a chef and owner of Blackbelly and Santo, said his power was out from Saturday afternoon to Monday around noon. He lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of food. The restaurants’ cooks and servers, some of whom he said live paycheck to paycheck, lost work hours.
“I’m all about protecting homes and businesses and everything else from fires. But they didn’t tell us what was going on,” Rosenberg told Boulder Reporting Lab. “If they keep just cutting the power out to our restaurant and we lose this kind of revenue and our staff can’t get paid, that’s kind of a slow death for a restaurant.”
Some business owners said they are considering investing in generators. But that could be costly at a time when financial margins are slim, they said.
“We’re already losing money in downtown Boulder due to nobody working downtown,” Kevin Daly, owner of Mountain Sun Pubs and Breweries, told Boulder Reporting Lab. He added, “The margins are so slim right now. You can’t take these kinds of losses.”
Last weekend was students weekend at CU Boulder for newly admitted first years, an event that brings thousands of people into the city. Heather Collaton, owner of the Bradley Boulder Inn, said her 12-room hotel was practically full.
“From that standpoint, it was a bit of a surprise when the lights went out at three o’clock Saturday,” Collaton told Boulder Reporting Lab.
On Saturday night, she said the hotel hosted a “campfire happy hour” in which people drank wine beside fake candles and flashlights. On Sunday morning, she got up early and bought the guests coffee and bagels.
But by Sunday afternoon, the inn still didn’t have electricity. Collaton said she gave everyone their money back and got them rooms at the St. Julien Hotel, which she said had not lost power. The last guest left a little after 3 p.m. on Sunday, she said. “As they were walking out the door, the lights all came on,” she said.
Collaton said she doesn’t want to be a downer. But she said the outage was difficult and expensive.
“What happens when the wind starts blowing again at 70 miles per hour? Who’s getting closed down?” Collaton said. “I am 100% on team safety. But it would be good if they got better at this.”
Xcel Energy has responded to the backlash primarily by apologizing for the hardship caused by the shutdown and defending its publication of news releases and notifications to customers. Officials have acknowledged they could improve how and when they notify customers.
“I think any company can state that they can always communicate better,” Andrew Holder, a spokesman for Xcel Energy, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “I think we’re learning a lot of lessons through this activity. And we are going to continue to lean on our community partners to ensure we continue to roll this out as best as possible.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify details about Foothills Hospital. Over the weekend, Boulder Reporting Lab spoke with several Foothills Hospital staff members on four different occasions. Each time, the staff said that the hospital was using generators. Later, a Foothills spokesperson said that only specific clinics within the hospital system were affected by the power outage and required generators. The Anderson Medical Center and the Tebo Family Medical Building, which are located on the Foothills campus, also lost power and were operating on generators.
