Serving the High Plains

Storm causes Tucumcari outage

Wednesday’s severe storm impacted a transmission line supplying electricity to Tucumcari, causing the outage that has affected all city customers.

“It’s unclear at the moment how long power will be out,” Xcel Energy spokesman Wes Reeves said Thursday morning.

“We do know that 20 structures have been destroyed on the transmission line feeding the city and repairs will likely continue into (Friday) if not later.”

But Reeves also said Xcel Energy has an “infrequently operated backup power station” that is capable of energizing the city.

“Power plant crews were dispatched to Tucumcari to bring the (Quay County Generating Station) online and are currently working to start the generator,” Reeves said.

“Transmission line crews were unable to reach the damaged line overnight because of flooding but are now in the area assessing damage to the transmission line.”

If successful in bringing the backup system online, power could be restored today, but workers “have run into some startup issues that are slowing this … solution,” Reeves said.