LOUISVILLE, Colo. — A Louisville food bank estimates it lost thousands of dollars worth of food during Xcel Energy's preemptive power outage.
Xcel cut power for 55,000 customers ahead of a major wind event Saturday.
Community Food Share feeds 40,000 people every year. Officials estimate the facility holds a couple million dollars worth of food, including roughly $80,000 in frozen or refrigerated items.
“We all left on Friday knowing that there was going to be some high winds but not hearing anything of any planned shutdowns for our area," said Kim Da Silva, CEO of Community Food Share.
The food bank — which has served Boulder and Broomfield counties for more than 40 years — had no idea they were part of Xcel Energy's preemptive power outages.
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On Saturday, Da Silva said Community Food Share received a call from Xcel Energy about the scheduled outage. No one was working at the time and the call went to voicemail.
“So Sunday, our COO came in to check if the power was on, and lo and behold it was not. And that is how we found out that we were in that planned shutdown. So, we started worrying right away," said Da Silva. “We knew that with all of the homes that were having their electricity out that we would see an increase this week, as people spend a lot of money on food, and when that food goes bad, they need to turn to assistance.”
Those with the food bank began thinking of ideas to preserve the food while the power was out.
“We do not have generators on site. So one of the things we were thinking of is let's get some trucks in here, refrigerated trucks, in case we need to move the food. But then, lo and behold, we realized that our lift gates all work on electricity so we wouldn't be able to get the food out to the truck," Da Silva explained.
They considered bringing in generators if the power was not on by 10 a.m. Monday. The power was restored at 9 a.m. Monday.
"We hit it just in the nick of time. We celebrated, did a happy dance, that all of this wonderful food was not wasted because of the power outages," said Da Silva.
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The large freezers were able to maintain the cold temperatures during the outage, but a smaller freezer was not. Da Silva estimates they lost around 2,000 pounds of food — mainly dairy products.
"You're talking, probably in the thousands of dollars worth of food. But it could have been way worse. So we're looking at the silver lining there," said Da Silva.
Da Silva wishes they had more notice about the outage, which she expects will happen more often.
“Before, you would see a windstorm like that once in a blue moon. You know, they're becoming more common. And so, we're afraid we're going to see more things like this in the future. So it is scary. It's scary for the families that still have power out that lost power for over two days in their own homes," said Da Silva. “Just the idea of not being able to supply that [food] was a very, it was just a sickening feeling. Especially now knowing that you have some families who may need our services, just because all of their groceries went bad.”
Community Food Share is looking at getting their mobile food pantries out into the community during the expected increased need. The facility is open to the public Wednesday through Friday, as well.
