craigdailypress.com

Itchy horses were to blame for a power outage in Northwest Colorado on Monday.

The city of Hayden and the western part of Craig were without power for about 40 minutes Monday morning.

Vic Rose, a line superintendent with the Yampa Valley Electric Association, said the power outage lasted from 10:35 to 11:20 a.m.

Rose said that when there are summer rain storms, the culprit is often lightning, but this time it was definitely livestock.

He said that horses on a farm south of Hayden were rubbing against a guy-wire, when a connection was broken.

"Horses like to rub this time of year," he said. "They were scratching their backs just like we do."

YVEA has protective devices on their lines, but the horses still rubbed through.

"Sometimes farmers aren't very careful with their animals," he said.

The power outage affected 1500 YVEA customers, Rose said, most of whom were in Hayden.

Bill Hayden, the owner of Hayden Mercantile, said he was back in the store's produce cooler when the power went out.

"It scared me when the lights went out," he said.

Hayden said that when the power goes out, his employees just have to wait.

"Everything shuts down, and we have to reboot everything," he said. "We are well-geared for emergencies."

He added that as soon as the power was back up, everything went back to normal.

The power line that was broken runs 26 miles between Hayden and a Craig substation, Rose said.

After a YVEA crew surveyed the line, Rose said they made a temporary repair that brought back power.

Rose predicts that permanent repairs would be done within a week, and he said more outages shouldn't be expected.

Even with hot temperatures reaching over 90 degrees the past couple of weeks, the heat is no reason to worry, Rose said.

He added that heat was not the cause of this outage.

"[YVEA] is usually a winter peak load company," Rose said.

Dominic Graziano can be reached at 824-7031, ext. 209, or dgraziano@craigdailypress.com.