{"id":792871,"date":"2019-02-08T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T00:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/summit-county-hit-with-power-outages-after-xcel-energy-discovers-low-pressure-in-natural-gas-lines\/"},"modified":"2019-02-19T10:53:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T17:53:34","slug":"summit-county-hit-with-power-outages-after-xcel-energy-discovers-low-pressure-in-natural-gas-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-county-hit-with-power-outages-after-xcel-energy-discovers-low-pressure-in-natural-gas-lines\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit County hit with power outages after Xcel Energy discovers low pressure in natural gas lines"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An Xcel employee works at the Frisco substation following a power outage in 2016.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Summit County residents woke up to rolling power outages throughout the area on Friday morning<\/a> after Xcel Energy experienced low pressure in their natural gas lines, effecting about 17,600 customers in the area.<\/p>\n

Mark Stutz, a representative with Xcel Energy, said that the company was alerted to low natural gas pressure in the Summit County area at around 4 a.m. on Friday. At 5:30, Xcel started efforts to stabilize and balance the system using controlled outages, rotating power to different areas around the county every 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

The controlled outages were a strategic move on the part of Xcel. Michelle Aguayo, a spokeswoman with the company, said that natural gas pipes require a specific amount of pressure inside the pipes (measured in pounds per square inch) in order to maximize usage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it drops below the normal pressure you won\u2019t get optimal use, and it can put a drain on the system,\u201d said Aguayo.<\/p>\n

Aguayo said that customers still had natural gas services going to their homes and businesses, but the controlled outages were preventative measures to stop a complete loss of power in the county. The outages effectively prevented the use of gas-fueled furnaces, as Xcel didn\u2019t want furnaces pulling gas from the already low-pressure system. Additionally, the outages prevented pilot lights from extinguishing, which would have required Xcel to go door to door throughout the county to relight them.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it goes completely out you lose your pilot light, stoves, water heater, all that stuff,\u201d said Aguayo. \u201cThen we have to go in premises by premises and relight all of those. This is a way to mitigate that end of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Xcel worked to identify the cause of low natural gas pressure, the effects of the power outages were felt around the county. Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons said that traffic became an immediate concern, with traffic signals flipping on and off throughout the day as Xcel shifted power from one area to another.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main impact of the rolling brown outs was traffic signals going on and off,\u201d said FitzSimons. \u201cPeople weren\u2019t paying attention to the lights, and they caused accidents all over the county.\u201d FitzSimons continued to say that the sheriff\u2019s office was forced to request additional resources from the Colorado State Patrol in order to deal with traffic issues.<\/p>\n

FitzSimons also noted that the Summit County Justice Center was running off of a generator during the power outages, and the jail was placed on lockdown for safety reasons. Red Cross was on standby to set up warming shelters in the county in case the outages continued through the night, though they didn\u2019t end up being necessary.<\/p>\n

The fire districts also had a busy morning. Steve Lipsher, public information officer with Summit Fire & EMS, said they responded to at least six calls to extricate trapped people from malfunctioning elevators around the county. Jim Keating, chief at the Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District said they responded to about a dozen calls for elevator extrications. Keating went on to say that the department ran into some trouble with maintenance teams inside the buildings trying to remove trapped passengers themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some facilities the maintenance personnel had the keys to override the elevator controls, and were attempting to remove people through the top hatch and doors,\u201d said Keating. \u201cThey were not skilled, and hadn\u2019t gone through training like our emergency responders had. If the power had cycled back on it could have been a bad day. We\u2019re encouraging maintenance people and managers not to let their untrained personnel try and remove trapped people.\u201d<\/p>\n

As emergency workers hustled to keep up with the domino effect caused by the power outages, schools and ski resorts were also pivoting to address the issue. Summit School District decided to close its elementary schools as a result of the outages, and the county\u2019s ski resorts were all forced to delay<\/a> openings until power was sufficiently restored.<\/p>\n

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area was completely without power from about 7-9 a.m. A-Basin then opened its Black Mountain Express, Lenawee and Pallavicini lifts to the public at 9 a.m., as planned. Before the ski area\u2019s power returned, though, A-Basin operated the lifts on generator power. At 10:45 a.m., A-Basin opened its Montezuma and Beavers lifts.<\/p>\n

Over at Vail Resorts\u2019 two Summit County properties, Breckenridge Ski Resort and Keystone Resort, Vail Resorts spokesman Russ Carlton said both resorts experienced delayed openings and were able to open for skiing and snowboarding with limited services using backup power sources. Breckenridge opened just after 11 a.m., with a handful of lifts open on four of its five peaks. At Keystone, the resort opened its River Run Gondola, Peru Express and Montezuma Express chairlifts shortly after 9 a.m., before opening select lift-service access to The Outback and North Peak at noon. And at Copper Mountain Resort, several of the resort\u2019s most remote, above tree line lifts remained closed into the late morning.<\/p>\n

Because the power outages were controlled, St. Anthony Summit Medical Center was not affected due to its status as a critical operations center, said Brent Boyer, communications advisor for the hospital. Additionally, the hospital\u2019s emergency and urgent care clinics at the base of Breckenridge, Keystone and Copper remained open for walk-in health care services throughout the day.<\/p>\n

By about 12:30 p.m., Xcel Energy rerouted the flow of its natural gas lines, a temporary fix that restored power to 13,800 customers. Xcel was able to restore power to the entire county by about 2:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

Despite an ongoing investigation throughout the day, Xcel still wasn\u2019t sure what caused the initial drop in pressure in the natural gas lines, or where exactly the problem originated. Aguayo said that Xcel would have staff in the mountains throughout the weekend continuing to try and identify the cause, and come up with a permanent solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of all of the snow and mountain terrain, it\u2019s difficult to pinpoint where the issue may be stemming from,\u201d said Aguayo.<\/p>\n

Aguayo also said they don\u2019t believe any customers completely lost natural gas service to their homes or businesses during the power outages, but noted that anyone who returned home to discover their pilot light was extinguished or gas stoves weren\u2019t working should immediately contact Xcel. The company is establishing a plan for relights. If you smell gas or a \u201crotten egg\u201d odor, immediately evacuate your home and contact Xcell energy at 1-800-895-2999.<\/p>\n

This is the second widespread power outage in the county in the last six months. In September, Breckenridge suffered sporadic power outages<\/a> throughout the town after a piece of equipment inside a transformer malfunctioned.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Xcel employee works at the Frisco substation following a power outage in 2016. Summit County residents woke up to rolling power outages throughout the area on Friday morning after Xcel Energy experienced low pressure in their natural gas lines, effecting about 17,600 customers in the area. Mark Stutz, a representative with Xcel Energy, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-792871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 17:20:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}