Heavy snow causes issues for power lines, outages in Roaring Fork Valley

Wet, heavy snow caused issues Thursday morning with power lines in the Roaring Fork Valley, with temporary outages for hundreds of residences, roads closures and reports of a power pole on fire.

Holy Cross Energy has crews on standby this time of year for “snow events” and  pulled crews from other jobs to help with outage issues, HCE spokesperson Jenna Weatherred said Thursday.

“When the snow is this heavy and wet and hits branches with the leaves still on them, it just compounds the problem,” she said. “We have crews out addressing everything as it comes. We just ask folks to be patient and know we’re working on it.”

OUTAGES: Holy Cross Energy map

Pitkin County sent an alert that Capitol Creek Road and Monastery Road were closed at about 8:50 p.m. because of a power line being down. The roads in Old Snowmass were reopened by 9:30 a.m.

A number of outages were reported by Holy Cross Energy, including one in western Pitkin County at 9 a.m. and affected more than 300 homes in the Crystal River Valley. It was restored about 45 minutes later, according to HCE.

Most all of the outages were resolved by noon.

Fire crews responded just before 9 a.m. to reports of a power pole showing flames near mile marker 24 on Highway 82.

“The snow started small, but it’s getting bigger and heavier, and that’s not good news for our lines,” Weatherred said.

The weather forecast for Thursday in the valley is snow at higher elevations and rain at lower elevations throughout the day.