An energy company cut the power. Then came the backlash

A version of this story first appeared on Colorado Public Radio.

In late December, Colorado’s largest utility shut off power to thousands of people around Boulder. Xcel Energy said it needed to cut the lights, because a downed power line could have ignited a wildfire. The shut-off sparked a backlash instead. 

Losing power, during the shortest days of the year, was trying for Bob Carmichael. He’s no stranger to difficult conditions — he’s climbed mountains, explored the ends of the earth, and even made a film about extreme skiing. 

“ I've spent a lot of times and big climbs and all kinds of stuff, but I know what I'm getting into. I don't just get thrust into it and say, ‘Good luck,’” he said.

Carmichael is almost 80 now, with hearing aids that need to be charged. For him, the whole experience was isolating. 

“I felt…,” he said, his voice cracking. “I felt scared.”

Xcel cut the lights because of hurricane-force winds and unseasonably warm, bone-dry conditions. It happened nearly four years after similar weather spread the Marshall Fire. That fire was Colorado’s costliest; it incinerated more than a thousand homes. 

The utility started notifying customers days before it cut the power, and then sent dozens of emails, texts and social media updates. Robert Kenney, the president of Xcel-Colorado, defended the company’s decision at a hearing last week.

“These were the exact same kinds of winds that were seen and that existed just prior to the Eaton and Palisades fires in Southern California,” he said. 

Utilities across the West shut off power to prevent fires. After all, no one wants another Lahaina or Altadena. But shut-offs can be a blunt tool. They hit the elderly, sick and poor people hard. 

Betty Devine and her roommate Beatrice Bell lost power for days. They’ve lived together for years, in low-income housing in Boulder. 

“She's my best friend,” Devine said. “You know, I consider her more than a sister. We say we're sisters from another mother.”

Bell has stage four breast cancer, and Devine’s her caretaker. Money is tight. After paying for rent and utilities, they have just $300 a month to pay for medicine, groceries and hospital bills. 

The shutoff threw a wrench in their careful planning. They lost around $200 worth of food, wiping out their reserves.  Still, they felt lucky. Last month, Bell’s doctors put her on oxygen. Which means she now needs power, 24/7.  

“We’re glad that it happened before she went on oxygen,” Devine said. “At the same time, it was really bad for a lot of people … and we were just one of many that were affected.” 

California was the first state to cut power to prevent fires. Michael Wara, director of the Climate and Energy Policy program at Stanford University, said shut-offs work. 

“Is it a drag? Yeah,” he said. “No one loves a power shut-off but they really do prevent fires under the most dangerous of circumstances, where the firefighters are not gonna be as effective,” he said.

Wara said that utilities like PG&E have gotten much better at targeting, so only the highest-risk areas go dark. And Wara thinks Xcel will get better at shutting off power — and turning it back on — in the future. 

“It’s something we have come to accept in California,” he said. “I think many other Western states are gonna have to accept it as well, because you can’t run the grid when it might kill someone by running it.”

Power shut-offs are just one tool utilities across the West use to prevent wildfires. But they may become more common, because of how hot and dry it is. Getting used to the dark could be a new normal, as more Americans are contending with fire risk, year-round.