Rocky Mountain Power scrambles to repair outages affecting thousands

SALT LAKE CITY — Rocky Mountain Power crews planned to work around the clock this weekend repairing power lines as winds up to 65 mph pummeled Utah. As of 3 p.m. Saturday, the utility reported 5,587 customers were without power. Approximately 3,000 of those customers were in the area surrounding Ogden with another 2,000 customers in the Salt Lake area in the dark. https://twitter.com/slcpd/status/1764029492522062303 The Salt Lake City Police Department tweeted Saturday afternoon that it was starting to get more storm-related calls for downed power lines. Rocky Mountain Power crews restored power to 1,861 customers in Tooele County Saturday morning. The Utility said it was investigating the cause of that outage. https://twitter.com/RMP_Utah/status/1763916922477801834 High wind and winter storm warnings are in effect across Utah this weekend. These will be the strongest winds of the season, according to the National Weather Service. “Wind is one of those trouble factors with weather,” said Tiffany Erickson, spokesperson for the utility. Erickson said the utility has meteorologists that track inclement weather and how it could impact systems. Wind is one of the leading factors when it comes to power outages. Erickson said they’re anticipating an increase in outage reports throughout the weekend. “It could be anything from hitting lines together to actually having debris go into lines to trees going into lines and so wind can be a big problem,” she said. “We really want to make sure that as a company, we forecast for those events.” You can get an update on outages in your area here.

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