Colorado Springs Utilities restores all power week after massive wind storm

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Wednesday, Dec. 15, hurricane-force winds rolled into Colorado Springs causing a major headache for customers of Colorado Springs Utilities (CSU). The winds triggered a countywide power outage that left some without power for days.

CSU confirmed it was the largest power outage the company has ever seen.

“We did know that we had some customers that began electrical shortage outage last Wednesday and was just restored as of last night,” Natalie Eckhart, a spokeswoman for the company, said.

When asked why it took crews a week to get everything back up and running, Eckhart explained several factors came into play. For starters, at the height of the restoration efforts, there were 70 crews out. Larger, multi-state utility companies like Xcel Energy had 450 crews out in Denver, which helped Xcel restore power quickly.

“If we had more hands on deck could we have restored more quickly? Well, of course. We were using every resource available to us,” Eckhart said.

Another factor is city infrastructure. CSU reports roughly 75 percent of its electric lines are underground. However, nearly 100 poles and five large transmission poles had to be replaced.

“They were damaged because we faced the equivalent of Category 2 hurricane-force winds, so yeah, it's very difficult for any utility system to survive,” Eckhart explains.

Eckhart told KRDO Springs Utilities is already compiling a list of areas in Colorado Springs that need infrastructure improvement.

“We already have information from Charlie Cassidy who served as our incident commander on the response team. He has already set meetings beginning in January to be sure that we captured all of the improvement opportunities,” she said.