The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
On Friday, January 17, GCEA experienced a power outage affecting approximately 2,300 members in the Mt. Crested Butte area. The outage was caused by an equipment failure located near the Mt. Crested Butte Wastewater Treatment Plant. The outage began at approximately 10:29 a.m. when a switchgear unit failed, de-energizing the circuits feeding all of Mt. Crested Butte, and cutting off power for several hours. A switchgear is a critical part of the electric distribution system which protects electrical circuits and provides a means of disconnection. Once the failed unit was identified and isolated, crews moved the electric load onto another switchgear and began restoring power, one section of the mountain at a time.
Crested Butte Mountain Resort was among those that lost power for about three hours on Friday. “As a result, our resort buildings lost electricity, and our chairlifts were temporarily down for this period,” said CBMR communications manager Katie Lyons, confirming that lifts were down from approximately 10:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. “Any guests who found themselves aboard a chairlift when the outage occurred were cleared using backup generators. Guests were cleared from lifts as soon as possible with some lifts receiving backup power sooner than others. All guests were fully cleared from the lifts within an hour of them losing power.”
The town of Mt. Crested Butte sent out text notifications regarding the power outage through its new TextMyGov messaging system. Town staff said that while town hall’s phones and internet were down, the phone system is app-based so community members were still able to communicate with staff.
Meanwhile, a new switchgear was moved from GCEA’s Gunnison headquarters to replace the damaged unit. Crews initiated another planned outage affecting 139 members along Crystal, Castle and Hunter Hill Roads at approximately 6:45 p.m. to replace the failed switchgear. During the planned outage, a switching issue caused an unintended outage affecting the entire mountain again for about five minutes. Crews quickly identified the problem and restored the system to normal operations around 7:15 p.m.
When the power went out, some GCEA members experienced difficulty calling in to report the outage. GCEA partners with Gunnison Regional Dispatch to take calls after hours and when lines are maxed out due to heavy call volume, calls cannot go through. Once GCEA staff realized the magnitude of the outage, phones were rolled back to GCEA offices and staff members began assisting callers. To aid in outage communication, GCEA strongly encourages its members to sign up for the SmartHub app which allows outages to be reported from a mobile device. SmartHub users may also elect to receive outage notifications via phone or text message to confirm when an outage is affecting their electric service.
GCEA appreciates the support and understanding of all those affected by this outage and apologizes for the interrupted service.
