Homes, businesses and street lights suddenly went dark in Frisco Wednesday morning, after power was knocked out for most of the town and much of the surrounding region.
A representative for Xcel Energy said customers in Breckenridge, Dillon, Copper Mountain and Red Cliff were also affected.
The blackout stems from a pair of outages, said utility spokesperson Tyler Bryant. The first lasted from about 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and affected about 5,000 customers. A second outage followed, leaving about 1,500 of those customers in Frisco without power.
The second outage was still ongoing Wednesday afternoon with more than 450 customers in the area still without power at 1 p.m., data show.
Bryant said crews patrolled the lines but were unable to determine what caused the outages.
The area has been hit with semi-frequent outages in recent months, said Frisco communications manager Vanessa Agee. By 10:30 a.m., power was still out at the town’s city hall, she said. Agee said she used the blackout time to clean her desk. With so much of her work dependent on internet access, there wasn’t much else she could do.
“What is stunning is how when something like this happens, how much you realize that you rely on technology for really all aspects of your work life and personal life,” Agee said.
Bryant said the utility is working on a fix for the uptick in outages and is working on short- and long-term fixes.
“This includes making adjustments to the system, focusing on equipment, repairs and upgrades,” he said.
The power outage disrupted a long list of routine government services, including things like building permits, She said. Businesses also were unable to run credit cards or even answer landline phones, many of which are now powered by the internet.
“We know that residents are certainly unable to get on their computers and do their work-from-home job,” Agee said.
Agee said the town hopes to work with Xcel Energy to find solutions for the outages. In the meantime, she’s happy to see how resilient her community has been in dealing with these power issues.
As she drove into work Wednesday, she passed an intersection where all the stop lights were out. Instead of that resulting in chaos, she saw drivers patiently taking turns.
“Incredible behavior from our residents and visitors,” Agee said.
