Lights Out: Power still out to over 100,000 Utah customers
Sep 9, 2020, 10:50 AM
Credit: Rocky Mountain Power
SALT LAKE CITY — Hurricane-force winds knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of Utah homes and businesses on Tuesday, and Rocky Mountain Power says some customers could be in the dark into Thursday.
Currently, RMP is reporting there are still 3,261 outages that are affecting 109,994 customers across Utah. The majority of those are in the Salt Lake area, but outages stretch into Ogden and Logan.
Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Spencer Hall says that they hope to restore power to most customers this evening. However, he said, it’s slow going.
“Right now, we’re at the stage where [we’re] going house by house going through and trying to get the trees out and the wires replaced and new poles,” Hall told Dave and Dujanovic on KSL NewsRadio Wednesday.
Hall says that in situations like this they are normally able to call on crews from surrounding states to come and assist. But in this case, those crews have been busy with their own outages.
Photo gallery: Widespread wind damage from northern Utah storm
“We had storms all the way from Oregon to Wyoming [and] in Wyoming they had wildfires battling snowstorms that ended up with eight inches of snow… Usually, we pull crews from different parts of our service territory and in this case, everybody was working in their local communities,” he said.
He also reminded those that may be out working to clean up debris in their neighborhoods to be cautious of downed power lines that may still be energized.
“Today is going to be the day where Utah does what it does best. Utahns are going to be out helping each other, and it’s a good time to be conscious of your circumstances.
“There are still wires down, there are dangerous circumstances, there are limbs hanging [from power lines.] So as everybody is out today helping and trying to get things cleaned up. I want to remind everyone to stay safe.”
Hall says if you think a situation calls for a professional, it probably does.
Hear the full conversation below
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