Wet and heavy snow is the culprit in a northern La Plata County power outage on Saturday morning that reached into San Juan County, leaving about 1,300 residents, and the entire area of Durango Mountain Resort in the dark.
Indiana Reed, spokeswoman with La Plata County Electrical Association, confirmed that weather was to blame.
“It’s just not cold enough,” she said. “The snow is wet and sticky, so it sticks to the wires and gets too heavy at some point and either pulls something down or pulls a tree limb down across the wires.”
The outage occurred about 7:45 a.m. Saturday, with a brief restoration that lasted about 10 minutes, according to a LPEA release. Then the lines again were down, indicating a fault somewhere, so crews began patrolling to locate it.
Power was out from Haviland Lake along U.S. Highway 550 and into San Juan County.
Crews found and repaired snow-loaded lines between DMR and Cascade Village and were able to restore power to all by 11:04 a.m., with the exception of Tall Timber Resort, which is closed for the season. Lines are being examined for damage before power will be restored to the seasonal facility.
LPEA has seen several other smaller outages throughout La Plata and Archuleta counties.
With plans to open this Friday, DMR’s CEO Gary Derck described the outage as common at the resort with the inclement weather.
“Usually, when we get heavy, wet snow, we have issues,” he said. “So we just try to get them taken care of.”
Further up the road at Cascade Village, Front Desk Manager Kathy Hinkle was in good humor. The main lodge at Cascade had power from a generator, but the outlying condominiums did not. This week, the hotel is booked to full capacity, but on Saturday they had only 10 guests.
“They all have fireplaces, and each condo has a supply of wood, so at least they could keep warm,” she said
She said during the outage, the snow kept falling.
“We just measured a little while ago,” she said Saturday morning. “We have 18 inches from yesterday and last night. That’s a lot.”
LPEA crews remain on alert considering the forecast of rain and snow for the area.
“Hopefully, that will be it,” Reed said.
Derck said skiers shouldn’t fret. “We’ll be open Friday,” he said. “One way or the other.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
