During a special meeting held on June 23 by the Archuleta County Board of County Commissioners (BoCC), the board unanimously approved Resolution 2026-49, adopting the county’s extended power outage emergency mitigation and response plan, and unanimously approved the Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office’s emergency management emergency alert and notification plan.
Emergency Management Commander Roy Vega and Sheriff Mike Le Roux briefed the BoCC on both matters during a work session earlier that day.
Vega explained that the county received information from La Plata Electric Association (LPEA) earlier this spring in regard to public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), and that with the weather conditions the area has been experiencing, the county will likely have to go into a PSPS at some point this summer.
“So, we updated our extended power outage emergency mitigation and response plan with that information in there,” Vega said. “That was the biggest change in that.”
Vega mentioned that he felt the emergency alert notification plan should be updated as well, “because if we go into a PSPS, we’re likely going to be sending out alerts, or IPAWS alerts.”
“I know we’ve had a PSPS already, but we weren’t notified,” Commissioner Veronica Medina commented, asking for more information on a specific incident.
“So, it wasn’t technically a PSPS,” Le Roux said, explaining PSPS are planned shutdowns for potential fire weather, “which we’ve had significant weather.”
Le Roux explained that there was an extended power outage that lasted for approximately nine hours that affected meters all along U.S. 84.
“The activated fire settings in that triangle that we looked at didn’t quite make the PSPS for a planned shutdown, so they didn’t shutdown ahead of time,” Le Roux said.
He further explained that the outage was caused by a downed tree in the area.
“It didn’t actually damage the infrastructure to my knowledge, it just created that outage, but based on where those settings were in their system, rather than just having the ability to fix and isolate that problem and bring the grid live again, or at least leave whatever was live, live ... they shut down that whole spur,” he said.
Le Roux also noted that crews have to inspect every inch of power lines that are affected before re-energizing lines.
“That was our biggest concern and it always has been,” he said.
Le Roux indicated that the extended duration of the outage was due to the reenergization process, “so, not technically a PSPS.”
He added, “Really the delay was the reenergization process.”
Le Roux explained that during the time of that outage, the county assisted people who were on oxygen tanks.
“Our [emergency operations center] team provided generated power to individuals to make sure that their concentrators were up and running,” he said, explaining the county did not have much notice of the outage, “and we were just left to pick up the pieces.”
He went on to explain that the purpose of updating the alert and notification plan is so the county can be on top of sending out notifications of outages, “when we know about it” and manage related consequences for the delay.
Le Roux also explained that the county uses Nixle and Everbridge360 alerts, “which is our public alert citizens alert warning platform.”
For more information on Nixle alerts and to sign up for them, visit www.archuletacounty.gov/services/citizens-alert-nixle.
Le Roux mentioned that the county also uses the integrated public alert and warning system (IPAWS), “which is ultimately like an Amber Alert locally,” explaining that whether or not you are signed up as Nixle subscriber, if you are located within the county at the time of an intense incident a notification will be sent to you.
“We reserve those alerts for higher-intensity incidents,” Le Roux said.
Commissioner Warren Brown asked if LPEA notifies the county’s emergency management team of unplanned outages, in order to be able to assist citizens, “rather than being so reactive.”
Vega explained that in the past, when it is not a planned outage, it is usually the county reaching out to LPEA about the issue.
“And they’re not really so much reaching out to us,” Vega added.
He noted that with a planned PSPS, the county would ideally be notified from LPEA 48 hours ahead of time.
Le Roux commented that when unplanned outages occur, LPEA is usually responding and reacting to the situation, as well.
“Interestingly, a lot of the outages, we end up notifying them personally,” Le Roux said.
He also commented that in every power outage incident the county has faced in his time in office, “LPEA has been responsive to our requirements to shut down the grid where we’ve needed it.”
Medina also asked about cell towers within the county, mentioning that typically in the past when the county experiences an outage, cell towers also go down.
Le Roux explained that there are now 10 cell towers in the county that all have a backup battery, and nine of those towers have backup generators.
“So what we know is that if the fiber goes out and the power goes out, we should still be able to make a cellphone call throughout an extended power outage,” Le Roux said.
“I think we’re in a better spot now,” Medina said.
Le Roux commented that the plan is to be able to take care of government and first responder operations during an outage, to be able to provide a “strong backbone” to look after people in the community.
>