High winds gusting to 100 mph along the Front Range downed more than 100 utility poles and left nearly 30,000 Xcel Energy customers without power at its peak midmorning Wednesday.
By mid-evening work crews had restored power to most of the affected areas, which ranged from the Denver area to the foothills north to Boulder and Fort Collins. As of 8 p.m., fewer than 1,200 customers were without service, Xcel said.
Xcel keeps an online.
Xcel spokesman Gabriel Romero said at midday that replacing power poles can be a difficult and time-consuming process but Xcel was giving highest priority to the problems affecting the most customers.
“We have extra crews in, but it’s difficult to tell the restoration time until we get a handle on the time it will take to replace the poles,” he said.
Romero stressed that people exercise extreme caution in the presence of downed lines.
“Get away from it; assume it’s a live wire,” he said. “We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature.”
According to the National Weather Service in Boulder, multiple gusts of more than 100 mph were recorded early Wednesday, including a 102 mph gust 2 miles northwest of Rocky Flats at 7:36 a.m. Another 100 mph gust was recorded at 6:01 a.m. near Gold Hill.
