After two Xcel power shutoffs in a week, thousands in Boulder remain without power as questions mount

Reporting by Brooke Stephenson, Por Jaijongkit and John Herrick.

This story was last updated at 4:00 p.m. on Dec. 21 and may be updated as new information becomes available.

What’s new (as of Sunday afternoon, Dec. 21):

• Xcel Energy says it has restored power to about 58,000 customers impacted by Friday’s severe windstorm and planned power shutoff. About 15,000 customers remain without power, including customers affected by both planned shutoffs and storm-related outages.
• Xcel expects most remaining customers to be restored by Sunday evening, though outages in harder-to-reach areas could extend longer due to extensive damage and access challenges.
• Residents in mountain communities continue to report extended outages. Commenters from areas including Gold Hill said they are still without power, with one resident reporting being without electricity for five days, raising concerns about dangerous conditions for animals and livestock.
• Xcel said restoration work includes pole replacements and helicopter-assisted repairs, particularly in areas that saw the heaviest damage, including Evergreen and the Boulder County foothills.

For the second time in a few days, Boulder entered a wildfire-related power shutoff on Friday, Dec. 19, as extreme winds and critically dry conditions swept across the Front Range. As the outage stretched into Saturday, thousands of residents remained without power and many reported limited or inconsistent information from Xcel Energy about when service would return.

Compared with Xcel Energy’s first-ever planned outage in April 2024, this week’s shutoffs came with clearer advance notice and better preparation at critical facilities. But many residents said the back-to-back outages left them without clarity on restoration timelines, as food and medications risked spoiling and temperatures dropped on Saturday.

“No Coloradan should be wondering if they will or will not have power, and when it may be turned on again, or worse, receive no communication or confusing communication,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

The strain of the outages has sharpened broader questions about how often Xcel will rely on shutoffs, who bears the cost, and whether the utility and elected officials are moving quickly enough on long-term wildfire risk solutions such as burying power lines, installing microgrids and hardening the grid.

“Front Range residents are moving beyond frustration toward regional accountability,” wrote Sophia Stein, a Boulder resident, in a message to Boulder Reporting Lab mid-outage. “We have launched Grid Justice Colorado to provide a unified platform for the 67,000+ households currently facing systemic grid failure.”

Stein said the coalition is pressing the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to require Xcel to develop a binding plan for undergrounding powerlines.

Extreme winds, fires and scattered damage

Tens of thousands of Boulder County residents lost power on Dec. 17 during the first of this week’s planned shutoffs, which Xcel implemented to reduce wildfire risk amid extreme winds and dangerously low humidity. Thousands more lost power during the wind event itself, as Xcel operated the grid under enhanced safety settings that automatically shut off power when damage or hazardous conditions are detected.

Thousands of customers still had not regained power when a second shutoff went into effect on Dec. 19. Some lost power again as early as 5 a.m. Friday and were told service might not return until Sunday or Monday. Xcel said it would contact customers directly with up-to-date restoration information by Saturday morning. A map now shows areas under restoration or where restoration is complete.

The second wind event brought damage across Boulder County.

The strongest gusts were extreme. NCAR recorded a 100-plus mph gust at its Mesa Lab around 11 a.m., with a peak gust of 113 mph around 2:30 p.m., likely the strongest recorded there in over a decade, according to BoulderCAST. Temperatures climbed into the 70s.

A few small fires sparked and were quickly contained. The most serious occurred around 1:30 p.m. Friday at the 3100 block of Euclid Avenue, where a wooden fence caught fire. A resident called 911 before the fire spread, and Boulder Fire-Rescue crews extinguished it before it could reach nearby homes. No injuries were reported, and no cause has been identified.

“The wind is wild out here,” Boulder Fire-Rescue said in a statement. “Crews being on the fire with water so fast and the community calling it in as soon as they saw it helped us catch the fire before a potentially serious spread.”

Elsewhere, trees fell, sometimes onto power lines, industrial dumpsters were blown into streets, and streetlights were knocked down. Powerlines in parts of the county were bent or snapped, creating dangerous conditions. A climbing gym in Longmont lost nearly half its roof, according to photos shared on social media, prompting closures and the cancellation of a youth competition.

Several roads and highways closed throughout the day, including Highway 93 between Golden and Eldorado Springs, stretches of Highway 128 and U.S. 36, Flagstaff Road and parts of the Peak to Peak Highway. The county suspended some transit services, including the CLIMB and the Lyons Flyer, due to road closures and severe conditions.

Critical facilities better prepared, but gaps remain

A year and a half ago, Boulder’s first planned shutoff unfolded chaotically. Notifications came late, maps were unclear, and some critical facilities lost power without warning, including the city’s wastewater treatment plant, which nearly discharged sewage into Boulder Creek.

Afterward, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission opened an investigation and ordered Xcel to improve advance notice, mapping and coordination with local governments and critical facilities. While the PUC does not control whether or when Xcel cuts power, it does regulate planning and rates.

In response, Xcel introduced a phased warning system, revised shutoff criteria and expanded outreach, especially to vulnerable residents who rely on electricity for medical needs. A public feedback survey launched by the PUC is collecting responses from residents affected by this week’s outages.

At Frasier Meadows, a senior living community in Boulder, staff had just over an hour’s notice during the 2024 outage. This year, they had three days’ notice, Julie Soltis, the facility’s director of communications, told Boulder Reporting Lab. When the facility lost power Wednesday night, backup systems worked as planned. The community even held its holiday party that night.

“Plenty of pre-planning. Our generators and backup lighting worked perfectly,” Soltis said. “Our residents were elated.”

At the city’s wastewater treatment plant, a repeat of last year’s emergency was avoided. One of the plant’s two power feeds briefly went out Friday morning but was quickly restored, according to Joe Taddeucci, the city’s director of utilities.

The Boulder County Jail also remained fully operational, with diesel generators in place as backup, according to Jail Division Chief Jeff Goetz.

Not all impacts were easily mitigated. Mike Block, CEO of All Roads, which operates Boulder’s largest shelter, said power was out Wednesday night and part of Thursday night. Staff used generators and wore headlamps. Food was served cold, and there was no heating.

“People rise to the occasion,” Block said. “We just muddle along.”

The city did not open an emergency shelter, according to Kurt Firnhaber, Boulder’s director of housing and human services. Temperatures were not expected to drop below 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and conditions were not forecast to last three days, the city’s criteria for opening an emergency shelter.

In mobile home communities, residents said homes largely made it through the storm intact. At Sans Souci Mobile Home Park, some are still living with roofs partially torn off during the Marshall Fire wind event and never fully repaired. One resident said she chose to stay in a small bedroom during Wednesday’s wind event rather than in her living room, where the roof remains only partially repaired.

Mountain outages and air quality worries

Mountain communities appeared especially hard hit by the extended outages. As one commenter on a Boulder Reporting Lab story wrote, “Because the power is out, so are our cellphones and landlines. We have no access to information, no way to call for help, and no way to check on neighbors.”

In Nederland, residents expressed concern about high winds blowing ash and debris from the site of the Caribou Village Fire, which destroyed a shopping center in October and around 20 businesses.

“Ash from building fires can contain metals, and the plastics in buildings produce toxic compounds,” said Joost de Gouw, a chemist with CIRES at CU Boulder, who previously studied smoke damage from the Marshall Fire.

De Gouw recommended that residents close windows to prevent ash from entering homes and consider wearing masks if downwind of the site.

Confusion over outage maps, impacts on businesses

Online discussions reflected ongoing frustration, especially around Xcel’s outage maps. Though vastly improved from the first planned shutoff in 2024, when a blurry map appeared to show all of Boulder without power, residents said the maps still raised questions.

Maps allowed residents to enter their addresses to check whether they were in a shutoff zone, but included disclaimers that outages could still occur outside those zones. Power outages appeared patchwork, with some blocks retaining power while neighbors went dark.

That inconsistency is largely due to Boulder’s complex electric grid. The system is made up of substations and feeder lines added incrementally as the city grew. Feeder lines can stretch across wildfire-prone areas to reach homes elsewhere. Because Xcel does not publicly release infrastructure maps for security reasons, residents often have no way to know why their power was cut while a neighbor’s wasn’t.

Some areas may have been deliberately kept energized for safety, operational or economic reasons. On Friday night, for example, the Pearl Street Mall remained brightly lit, even as nearby neighborhoods were dark.

Meanwhile, Xcel and local agencies sent regular email and text updates to residents, including outage information, restoration times, road closures and emergency resources.

During the 2024 shutoff, restaurants were among the hardest hit, many losing significant inventory with little warning. This time, impacts appeared more limited, though holiday weekend sales are difficult to recoup.

T/aco was one of a few downtown restaurants that stayed open Wednesday night during the first shutoff. Owner Peter Waters said the restaurant was “packed all night,” with waits up to 90 minutes. But with warnings from Xcel that power would be cut Friday morning, Waters closed the restaurant, only to find power was never shut off.

“We asked for more communication, and they gave us more communication the next time around. It was just the wrong message,” Waters said. “Maybe we should have been a little bit clearer.”

The weekend before Christmas is typically one of the busiest of the year. Some restaurants reported fully booked dining rooms and hoped to make it through Friday evening with power intact.

To help offset lost business, the City of Boulder is offering a free “parking holiday” downtown from Saturday, Dec. 20 through Wednesday, Dec. 24, waiving fees to encourage residents to shop and dine locally.