DOWNTOWN BOISE, Idaho — Idaho Power proactively cut power to thousands of people Wednesday night in its first ever Public Safety Power Shutoff event. The program is intended to reduce the risk of power lines starting new wildfires in extreme weather conditions.
- 9,103 customers were impacted by the Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) event.
- You can learn more about the Public Safety Power Shutoff program here.
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story.)
"It was an intense experience," says Sven Berg, a Communications Specialist with Idaho Power.
He tells me the company had crews working late into the night Wednesday as part of their Public Safety Power Shutoff event.
"It was our first in this company's history, a lot of planning had gone into these. Of course not everything goes exactly the way you think it's going to go," says Berg.
The PSPS event left 9,103 customers without power in neighborhoods across Ada County.
Berg explained that because of how the power grid is set up, shutting off power 'upstream' can cut electricity to large chunks of town... something they're looking to address.
"We are, in some places, working on segmenting the line so that we can do that with more precision. So that, you know, a smaller group of people would be affected by these shut offs if we need to call them in the future," says Berg.
He tells me their biggest takeaway from the event was the importance of getting messaging out to the community.
"I think one of the things we learn is communication early and often with people is really helpful. Not everyone's gonna be very happy with the fact that their power is out, especially when it's hot we understand that. It is not something we want to do... But Safety has to come first and I am sure they understand that but we understand some frustration too," added Berg.
Power restoration happened in phases. Some saw power back on by 11 PM Wednesday, while others waited until after 3 AM Thursday.
"We hope we never have to do one again, but the fact is, fire activity has increased in our service area... We can never really know what didn't happen, but we think that we made the right move I can tell you that," says Berg.
