It’s a Friday night in December. Your guests just got in from Denver: two couples, a dog, a bag of groceries for the weekend. The wind has been howling all afternoon. Around 9 p.m., the lights go out.
Nothing’s wrong with your cabin. The power company shut it off on purpose.
Now the furnace fan is off. The well pump is off, so after a few flushes there’s no water. The Wi-Fi is down, and the nearest cell tower may be down too, so they can’t text you. The hot tub is cooling. It’s 15 degrees outside and dropping, and they have no idea where the flashlights are or whether they should leave.
This isn’t a what-if anymore. It happened last December, and it will happen again.
What happened last winter
On December 17 and again on December 19, 2025, Xcel Energy used what it calls a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS). When high winds, low humidity and dry fuels line up, Xcel cuts power to lines that could spark a wildfire. Up to 69,000 customers across Boulder, Jefferson and other Front Range counties lost power, some of them for as long as seven days. Foothills communities including Conifer and Evergreen were hit. Mountain residents told state regulators they also lost cell service, internet and landlines for days.
Why so long? Before Xcel turns a line back on, crews have to physically inspect every mile of it. In the foothills, that’s a lot of steep, wooded miles.
Then on March 14, 2026, Xcel planned another shutoff covering about 18,000 customers in Boulder and Jefferson counties, roughly 3,400 of them in Jeffco.
Xcel is spending $1.85 billion on wildfire upgrades through 2027 (insulated wire, new poles, smaller shutoff zones). The goal is to make shutoffs smaller and shorter. It is not to stop them. Xcel has been clear that it will keep cutting power when the conditions call for it.
If your place is on CORE Electric (Bailey and much of Park County), you’re not off the hook. CORE’s main tool is a sensitive line setting that trips the power whenever something like a branch touches a line. That means more frequent outages on windy days, and CORE keeps a preemptive shutoff in its plan as a last resort.
Why a rental gets hit harder than a home
When the power goes out at your own house, you know where the lantern is and which breaker runs the well. Your guests don’t. Here’s what goes wrong:
- No water. Most foothills rentals are on a well, and well pumps run on electricity. Whatever’s left in the pressure tank is all they’ve got.
- No heat. Even a propane or gas furnace needs electricity to run its blower and controls.
- No way to reach you. Guests text the host. If the cell tower is out too, they can’t.
- Bad decisions in the dark. Candles near the curtains. A camp stove in the kitchen. A space heater plugged into a generator inside the garage.
- A one-star review for something you didn’t do. Guests don’t rate the utility. They rate the stay.
8 things to set up before wind season
1. Get the alerts and decide who acts on them. In your Xcel account (or CORE’s), make sure outage alerts for the rental’s address go to a phone that’s actually watching. Xcel sends shutoff warnings by phone, text and email as the forecast gets close, and you can look up the address on its outage map. Decide now who calls the guests when a warning comes in.
2. Put an outage kit where guests can’t miss it. A labeled bin by the door or in the pantry: LED lanterns and headlamps (not candles), spare batteries, a battery-powered or plug-in-with-battery-backup CO detector, extra blankets, and a phone power bank. Tell guests where it is in your check-in message.
3. Plan for water. Keep a few gallons of drinking water and a couple of larger jugs for flushing. Label the well pump breaker in the panel. Well experts recommend turning that breaker off during an outage so the pump doesn’t kick on in a surge when power comes back.
4. Have a heat plan, and a clear “never” list. If there’s a wood stove or fireplace, keep it stocked with dry wood and print simple instructions next to it. If you have a generator, it goes outside, at least 20 feet from doors, windows and vents, per the CDC. And spell it out in writing: no grills, camp stoves or generators inside the house or garage.
5. Print a “Power’s Out” card. Your digital guidebook is useless with no Wi-Fi and no cell signal. Put a one-page laminated card on the fridge: where the kit is, how to keep warm, how much water there is, what not to do, and when to leave. Add a local contact’s phone number and a landline if you have one.
6. Protect the pipes and the hot tub. A multi-day outage in December can freeze both. Decide ahead of time who checks the property if power has been out more than a day, and whether the hot tub gets drained. (Our October post on frozen pipes in empty rentals covers the plumbing side in more detail.)
7. Decide your refund policy now, not at 9 p.m. Will you refund nights lost to an outage? Help guests rebook somewhere in Denver? Having the answer ready makes a stressful night a lot calmer, and guests remember how you handled it. If you’re in unincorporated Jeffco, your license already requires a local representative who can respond within 30 minutes. A shutoff is exactly when that person matters.
8. Reset before the next guest. Per FoodSafety.gov, a closed fridge keeps food safe for about 4 hours and a full freezer about 48 hours. After a long outage, perishables need to go, the fridge needs a wipe-down, and the kit needs restocking. Check the thermostat, the well, the water heater pilot (if it has one) and the hot tub before anyone new checks in.
Where we come in
Our crews are in rentals across Conifer, Bailey, Evergreen, Pine and the 285 corridor every week, through every windstorm. After an outage, we can do a full reset before your next check-in: clear and clean the fridge and freezer, restock the outage kit, swap the linens, and flag anything that looks off, like a cold hot tub, a tripped breaker or a dripping pipe.
Want help getting your rental outage-ready this winter? Get in touch or call us. The next windy night is coming. Better to be ready for it.
Sources: Denver Gazette, “Xcel gets an earful from public for power shutoffs in Colorado” (Jan. 29, 2026) and “Xcel says $1.85B plan aims to make public safety power shutoffs rarer” (Apr. 1, 2026); Boulder Reporting Lab, “Xcel warns Boulder power shutoff likely Saturday” (Mar. 13, 2026); Denver7, “How CORE Electric’s approach differed from Xcel Energy’s”; 211 Colorado, “Xcel Energy – Planned Electricity Shutoffs”; Private Well Class, “What do I do if there is a power outage and my well won’t work?”; CDC, “Prevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning”; FoodSafety.gov, “Three Ways to Keep Food Safe When You Lose Power”; Jefferson County Ordinance 11.1 (Vacation Rental Services).
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