LITTLETON, Colo. — It's been a week and a half since thousands of Xcel Energy customers had their power turned off as a precaution as high winds swept through Colorado.
Xcel intentionally caused outages for 55,000 people across six counties the weekend of April 6. An additional 100,000 people were affected by power outages through the weekend due to the winds.
This was the first time Xcel had issued outages ahead of extreme weather, as opposed to in response to it.
Now, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission is investigating how the shutoff was managed. Part of that investigation includes hearing from the thousands of people who were impacted.
One of those Xcel customers is Ken Katzenmeier, owner of the Columbine Bar and Restaurant in Littleton. He said the business was without power for several days following the windstorm.
"It gets very frustrating," Katzenmeier said.
Katzenmeier said he lost potential business serving NCAA basketball fans and about $1,000 worth of food over the course of the weekend.
"Had to pack our refrigerators and freezers with ice," Katzenmeier said. "You can’t really do anything in a dark restaurant. A lot of emotions come into play."
The restaurant owner said he knows the electricity shutoffs were for overall safety, but he wishes Xcel had done a better job with communication.
"It’d be great if they could sit there and tell you, 'it’s going off here, coming back on then,' but I understand they can’t always do that, they don’t know what kind of damage is out there, but they could just as well relay it," Katzenmeier said.
He's not alone.
Ben Todd owns two restaurants on Broadway in Denver. While power was out on his block, every other block in their neighborhood had power.
"Unfair and arbitrary seems to be the vibe of the day," Todd said.
Without power, they lost nearly $20,000 in those three days.
"I'd like to know what Xcel is going to do to compensate for this," Todd said. "Clear and correct communication would be great but what we really need is accountability from Xcel and compensation for the loss that so clearly rests on their shoulders."
Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett told the commission about the city's wastewater treatment plant losing power and backup power.
"We faced the prospect of raw sewage entering Boulder Creek which would have caused a public health crisis impacting the downstream communities of Lafayette and Louisville and would have had a cascading effect on our health care systems and long term care facilities," Brockett said.
Steve Pomerance, a former Boulder City Councilmember, told the PUC they should call for a detailed report from Xcel on the damage that occurred in this storm compared to the damage from the past two years since the Marshall Fire.
“The thing that shocked me most about this whole outage was the amount of damage that occurred from a windstorm that really wasn’t all that bad relative to what we’ve seen in Boulder," Pomerance said. "It made me think Xcel in fact was not being responsible and had not been responsible for probably ever since they took over from Public Service Company to keep the equipment up to snuff."
He wants to see Xcel be required to bring their equipment up to a standard that it can withstand 100-mph winds in future storms, and soon.
"To me, the critical question should be, what do we need to do to avoid having to shut down in the future if at all possible, not just how to plan better for the outages," Pomerance said.
Pomerance said Xcel should be held financially responsible for this shutdown so they have a stake in getting things right for the next storm.
In a statement to 9NEWS, Xcel defended their decision to shut down power to protect the public from wildfire risks during the windstorm, saying "We acknowledge there are ways to improve executing these safety measures in the future and are listening closely to what our customers are sharing in today's hearing."
Wednesday's public hearing was the first step forward into the PUC's investigation into Xcel's processes for shutoffs like this.
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