On Monday, September 11, an underground tunnel line in downtown Colorado Springs burst into flames, and the fires were so bad that flames could be seen shooting out of manholes. C02 levels had risen in buildings in the area and knocked out power for over 280 utility customers. Many popular downtown locations were without power including the city hall which caused a great deal of issues for many individuals. The outage even spread to other parts of town like Nevada Avenue and Tejon.
For over 48 hours many individuals were without power. Despite how dramatic this event was, the heroes that are the utility team came to the rescue. They were on the job as soon as news broke that the disaster struck, and by 20 hours without power the utility team had recovered power for 130 customers. In addition to repairing the electrical system utility workers were also working to air out the area and lower C02 levels to make the area habitable again.
Joshua Vernaccio, Class of 2025, was downtown this weekend and made this statement: “With all the rain we’ve been having recently, I was surprised to say the least.” Joshua is a student at Coronado High School who was downtown just days after the disaster occurred.
Overall, it seems likely that there isn’t going to be a long recovery from this and most damages have been repaired, but it’s important that Colorado Springs Utilities take extra measures to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again. This is especially true when they have full management over the operations pertaining to the underground power system, but it’s clear that the utility team are the real heroes.
