Power outages cost businesses thousands
Widespread outages across the Front Range have impacted tens of thousands of customers, including businesses that lost thousands of dollars in spoiled food and nonexistent sales, each day the power remained off.
“Saturday morning, I got a text message from one of my employees saying he got a message from Xcel telling him the power would be cut off,” Chef Hosea Rosenberg said. “First, I wasn’t too concerned because I didn’t get any notifications.”
Rosenberg is the owner of local Boulder restaurants Santo and Blackbelly, and explained that while Santo has been open for business, Blackbelly has been without power since Saturday.
“I didn’t hear anything from Xcel, and then at three o’clock sharp, the power went out,” he said. “And we jumped into action.”
With the warning given from his employee and community members, Rosenberg was able to borrow a refrigerated truck from a business contact to store as much food as possible. Fifteen minutes into loading the truck, he finally received communication from Xcel Energy saying the power was out.
Rosenberg and thousands of other Xcel Energy customers have been without power since Saturday when, according to the company’s website, it turned off more than 600 miles of power lines in anticipation of the high winds over the weekend. Peak gusts in Boulder County neared 100 mph, late Saturday.
Close to 90,000 customers statewide had experienced outages statewide by late Sunday afternoon. Late Monday afternoon, about 3,900 in the Boulder area were still experiencing outages, according to Xcel Energy.
“I’m the registered contact with Xcel Energy. I often get notifications when there’s outages
and I got zero warning from them — nothing,” Rosenberg said. “Information is the most critical piece here … we can’t do anything if we don’t have the information. And that’s the most frustrating part.”
Rosenberg estimates that between Blackbelly being closed and the food that didn’t make it into the truck, it will lose at least $40,000 — not to mention the wages staff members are having to go without.
“Losing all the sales, losing product, having staff out of work — it feels like COVID all over again,” he said. “The worst part is not knowing, I still have no clue when our lights are gonna go back on.”
Outages — and the resulting impacts — extended well past Boulder and into neighboring cities. The Niwot Market is just one example of numerous Boulder County businesses upended and hit in the pocketbook by the events of the weekend.
Although the market had more warning of the outage, co-owner and store manager Alison Steele said she estimates it’s lost $35,000 of sales and product.
“We’re a little (market).
We lose a day of sales and that’s detrimental to a business like ours,” she said.
The market was able to borrow a refrigerated truck from a vendor, and loaded up everything it could fit as soon as possible. But Steele said it couldn’t all fit. Thousands of dollars of ice cream, frozen deli meat and other products were lost.
“At noon, (Xcel) left the message saying they were doing planned outages,” Steele said. “What was so frustrating is that across the street, the whole downtown business area was open, and all the lights were on.”
Back in Boulder, Bobby Stuckey, partner and master sommelier at Frasca Hospitality Group that Frasca Food and Wine and Pizzeria Alberico on Pearl Street lost nearly $70,000.
“It’s a great gift to wake up and not have Boulder be on fire,” Stuckey said. “But it was hard, certain businesses are affected differently than others.”
Stucky did not receive official notices from Xcel Energy; rather, he had to rely on employees who received word about their homes losing power. With no communication, restaurants aren’t able to preserve food through solutions like refrigerated trucks or generators. And even those are measures that Stuckey said businesses shouldn’t be having to consider.
“It’s unfortunate that we’re trying to think of something like that, when Xcel is a publicly traded, for-profit business,” Stuckey said. “They have the control of other businesses being able to do business, meaning we need some collaboration with them on this.”
Kevin Daly of Mountain Sun pubs agreed, and said be believed cities and local governments should be more focused on protecting the public, rather than large corporations.
“It’s unfettered capitalism. We have these billion-dollar companies giving billions of dollars to shareholders, while not protecting the public,” Daly said. “Where’s our government in protecting us from these companies? Why isn’t the state … and the city demanding more from them?”
Daly estimated that between three restaurants — the company website shows two locations in Boulder and one in Longmont — he lost over $75,000. It would’ve been more, he said, without a warning he received, although it didn’t come from Xcel Energy. Daly said the Boulder Chamber warned as many businesses as it could, once it heard of the planned outages.
“The chamber was amazing, and they were the only resource,” he said. “But we shouldn’t have to rely on them.”
In addition to businesses losing food, many residents saw their personal larders take it on the chin, as well. Some households will have to replace fridges and freezers full of food. For many, that’s an expense that’s tough to afford.
“The disruption caused by the power outage has impacted the lives of countless households, and we are anticipating a significant increase in the number of people accessing our mobile and onsite pantries as well as the programs offered by our 42 Partner Agencies,” said Kim Da Silva CEO, of Community Food Share in a news release.
“The surge in demand will result in added pressure to an already stretched system.”
Despite increased demand, Community Food Share explained in the release that it is working to make sure it can meet increased demand, and encourages anyone in need to contact their closest food bank and pantries.
Also, residents in need of disposal for their spoiled food can bring non-glass containers for disposal at Western Disposal, 2051 63rd St., Boulder.