All but a small fraction of the 102,500 homes and businesses that lost power Sunday and Monday have had their electricity restored following a wet storm in which snow-laden branches took down power lines, Xcel officials say.
Only 1,300 homeowners – or less than 2 percent of power customers – were still without power as of 7:30 a.m. and they should have power restored by noon, said Mark Stutz, Xcel spokesman.
Hundreds of linemen and tree-trimmers have been working since 9 p.m. Sunday. A rejuvenated team of 66 line crews and 26 tree-trimming crews were out at 6 a.m. clearing and cutting fallen and damaged trees and restoring power, Stutz said.
“We knew that this would be a pretty damaging storm,” he said.
In the metro area most trees haven’t lost their leaves and many toppled onto power lines, Stutz said.
About 56,000 customers had sustained outages from at least 5 minutes to as long as several hours, he said.
Xcel was nearly at full force after many workers went to Florida and Texas to help communities stricken by hurricanes, he said.
Crews from Colorado Springs, where the snowstorm had less of an impact than the Denver metro area, also joined the 24-hour effort to restore power, Stutz said.
“It was a pretty heavy response,” he said. “It was mostly a west-side storm.”
