DENVER (KDVR) — As the snow begins to taper off on Saturday, thousands are still left without power as a late May snowstorm brought heavy and wet snow to the state.
Since Friday night, about 210,000 customers have had outages. As of 7:30 p.m., about 160,000 customers had power restored and approximately 50,000 customers are still without power, the company tweeted.
Xcel reported on Sunday that they expect to have power restored to all customers affected by the snowstorm by the end of the day.
Saturday morning, the southern metro area experienced the biggest impact. Littleton had reported 98 outages with 6,832 people without power, and the Lakewood area had 115 outages with 21,912 customers impacted.
Xcel Energy had employees ready to respond to the late spring snowstorm. Crews are continuously working to restore power to the thousands of customers left in the dark since Friday evening.
The company said more than 1,200 employees and contractors, including crews coming from other states, were working around the clock to repair damage and restore service to customers.
Preparing for a power outage
Snowstorms in Colorado are nothing new, and Xcel has tips to prepare for weather-related outages.
- Report your outage
- Customers can help Xcel by reporting any outages to the company online at Xcel’s website.
- Customers can also text “OUT” to 98936 to report the outage, or “STAT” to 98936 to check the status of the outage.
- They can also call 1-800-895-1999 and follow the prompts to report an outage in less than 60 seconds.
- Stay away from downed power lines
- With a heavy snowstorm such as this one, it is especially important to steer clear of power lines. Always assume the electric line is energized and dangerous. Report the line immediately to 1-800-895-1999.
- Build a home emergency kit with essential items
- Flashlights
- Batteries
- Back up phone chargers
- Non-electric alarm clock
- Bottled water and nonperishable food
- First aid kit
- Heating safety
- If using a space heater to keep warm, follow all labels on the heater. Never leave a space heater unattended, turn it off when leaving the room.
To check on the areas impacted by power outages, visit Xcel Energy’s outage map.