High winds tore across parts of Colorado’s Front Range and Eastern Plains on Friday, causing thousands of people to lose electricity as gusts up to 80 mph damaged power lines, caused dust storms, overturned semitrucks and closed highways.
Xcel Energy crews were still working to restore power to than 9,000 customers in northern Colorado on Friday night, 12 hours after utility officials preemptively cut power in Larimer and Weld counties to prevent downed power lines from starting wildfires.
The number of customers who lost power peaked at about 26,000 on Friday afternoon, including approximately 21,000 Xcel customers and 5,000 Poudre Valley electric cooperative members, according to online outage maps.
All of the Poudre Valley outages were resolved as of 7 p.m.
Transportation and law enforcement officials closed or restricted access to several highways because of safety concerns, including sections of Interstate 70 east of Denver, Interstate 25 north of Fort Collins, U.S. 24 and U.S. 85 that remained closed until Friday evening.
The State Patrol posted pictures of several semitrucks that overturned in the high winds on Interstate 70 near Kansas.
National Weather Service forecasters also issued a red flag fire warning for most of the day for Front Range communities from Pueblo to Fort Collins because of extreme fire danger.
reported winds up to 80 mph near Towner in Kiowa County, 78 mph near Burlington, 76 mph on Berthoud Pass and 75 mph in Limon, according to the weather service.
High wind also caused visibility problems near construction and agricultural areas where soil was disturbed, including land along I-70 and I-76 northeast of Denver. Weather spotters reported dust storms near Yuma, Burlington and the Bonny Dam and Reservoir, the National Weather Service said.
The windstorm also caused the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment to issue an for the plains, noting that significant blowing dust that reduces visibility to less than 10 miles could impact people with health conditions, older adults and children.
Although the weather is expected to mellow out Saturday along the foothills and Front Range, Eastern Plains communities will remain under a for high winds and low humidity until 5 p.m., according to the National Weather Service.
