Temperatures that are expected to hover around 11 degrees tonight in La Plata County have officials worried for the safety of hundreds of people still without electricity.
“Many of the people in homes without power have not left. The majority are still there,” said Danni Lorrigan, emergency coordinator for the La Plata County Office of Emergency Preparedness.
As of late afternoon, 1,800 homes are without electricity. While utility officials believe they can restore power to 800 of the homes by this evening, about 1,000 homes in the Vallecito Reservoir area will remain without power until late Thursday, officials said.
“They are surviving on wood heat, usually wood stoves,” said Lorrigan.
La Plata County – which includes the towns of Durango, Bayfield and Silverton – has been hard hit by a series of winter storms and now by the falling temperatures.
Among the top priorities Tuesday were efforts to rescue 70 horses trapped by snow near Vallecito Reservoir. Lorrigan said that late today Division of Wildlife agents and volunteers on snowmobiles reached the horses on a ranch where rescuers on Monday brought out the wife of the rancher.
The rescuers brought hay and other feed to the animals. Lorrigan said that officials are trying to determine if an effort should be made to bring the horses out or keep them at the ranch the rest of the winter with sufficient feed.
Butch Knowlton, director of the emergency preparedness office, said the horses are in the coldest part of the county next to a wilderness area.
The horses are located about 25 miles northeast of Durango.
Lorrigan said that rescuers late yesterday were able to rescue a woman who had been stranded for four or five hours after she left her isolated home to rescue her dog, who had left the house and wandered into deep snow.
Both became snowbound and rescuers got to her after her screams alerted neighbors.
She was evaluated and with her dog taken back to her residence where she chose to stay, said Knowlton.
Lorrigan said volunteers from the San Juan Sledders Snowmobile Club rode the unplowed roads in the Lemon Reservoir and Vallecito Lake areas and checked door-to-door to see if the residents needed assistance.
The La Plata County Sheriff’s Office provided support for the sledders, patrolled the snow-paralyzed areas and conducted welfare checks, she added.
During the weekend and yesterday, as many as 2,900 homes lost electricity in La Plata County.
Indiana Reed, spokesperson for La Plata Electric Association, said the bulk of the outages remain in homes near Vallecito Reservoir.
“The problem at Vallecito is that it looks like a war zone,” said Reed. “The pines, oaks and aspen have fallen across the lines and sometimes pulled poles and broken their arms. A lot of these are really big trees.”
Reed said that there are 12 crews in the field restoring power. But in the Vallecito area, trees have had to go in to clear the trees.
Snow and avalanches in the area have closed U.S. 550 over Red Mountain Pass.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
