Colorado snowstorm cuts power to 52,000, thousands still without power

At least 52,000 Colorado homes lost power during the peak of last week’s snowstorm, which dropped feet of wet, heavy snow across the state, according to Xcel Energy.

As of 11 a.m. Sunday, 8,297 homes were without power across Colorado, a jump of nearly 6,000 homes from 10 a.m., according to the energy outlet’s outage map. The majority of the remaining outages — 98 outages affecting 8,232 homes — were in the Denver area.

At 10 a.m. Sunday, Xcel officials had reported that 2,624 homes across Colorado remained without power.

On a typical day, the energy outlet sees anywhere from 10 to 40 outages, according to Xcel Energy spokesperson Michelle Aguayo.

Aguayo said trees were the major cause of all outages across the state this weekend, dragged down onto power lines by the storm’s wet and heavy snow.

As of Saturday night, Xcel crews were still working to address outages that started as early as 5:30 p.m. Friday, according to Aguayo. New outages are still being reported.

“Crews typically focus first on repairs that will restore power for the largest number of customers,” Aguayo said in a statement emailed to the Denver Post on Saturday. “After that, crews will move to the neighborhood level, before handling individual customer outages.”

Aguayo said this storm caused a high number of outages to individual properties or small groups of customers, so it will take time for crews to reach all affected locations and make repairs.