Six Outages in Weeks: Littleton Demands Answers From Xcel

By Nicole Fierro | KDVR Fox 31

LITTLETON, Colo. (KDVR) — A Littleton neighborhood is reaching out to the FOX31 Problem Solvers for help after a number of recent power outages.

From businesses to families, the power outages are impacting people in different ways: wages lost, medical risks for people relying on oxygen, and no air conditioning in high temperatures.

“They just redid all of our power poles and stuff and you would assume new would be even better,” said resident Kristi Myers. “And now we’re having problems.”

From Kristi Myers in the Kingsley cul-de-sac to Kenneth Katzenmeier at the Columbine Bar and Restaurant on Pierce Street, power problems have been striking where they work and live a number of times since June.

“Since June, we have had five or six outages,” Myers said. “We have sought first to understand and now we’re asking to be understood.”

Community members tell FOX31 they can’t get answers or a solution for what’s going on.

“Frustration levels are way up here,” Katzenmeier said. “I’ve tried contacting Xcel Energy and tried contacting people in the field, actually driving around, trying to find people in the field, like what’s going on.”

Xcel confirmed six recent outages in Littleton to FOX31, dating back to June. The outages have lasted between 49 minutes and almost five hours at times.

“My husband no longer can work from home because we don’t know when it can happen,” Myers said. “When it happens, our houses will skyrocket to like 80 degrees, 83 degrees for some people.”

As the owner of Columbine Restaurant and Bar, Katzenmeier says the outages impact his and his employees’ livelihoods.

“We have to shut our kitchen down, of course, because we can’t no lighting back there, can’t prepare food and it’s not like we can shut down for an hour and a half,” Katzenmeier said. “I have got to shut it down for the day.”

Katzenmeier also lives down the road from his restaurant, so it impacts him there, too.

“My wife, if she’s at home, she’s on oxygen,” Katzenmeier said. “It’s a concern.”

In one of the more recent outages, resident Sharon Broome found herself stuck.

“This very last time when the electricity went off, my sister was having a procedure,” Broome said. “She’s 71, and she was all prepped and ready to go. Then, 45 minutes before, our electricity went off. I had to call her and told her that I couldn’t get out of my garage.”

Breaking down the causes of the recent outages, Xcel cited issues to FOX31 ranging from animal contact, equipment failure, tree contact and undetermined causes. An Xcel spokesperson shared the following statement:

“Our priority is to provide our customers the reliable, clean, safe energy they expect, and we are frustrated when our customers experience ongoing outages.

While most outages are out of our control, such as weather events, animal contact or damage due to lines being struck, we make every effort to investigate and remedy those causes that are related to our equipment. In this case, we are inspecting the lines using drones and other technology and determining next steps for ensuring reliability.

We want to assure our customers we are looking into these outages and hope to resolve these issues, making sure energy works better for all our customers.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT KDVR FOX 31