Mt. Charleston Residents To Face Power Outages During Extreme Weather
Residents of Mt. Charleston are facing double and maybe triple trouble after NV Energy announced that it would be shutting down power to people living on the mountain whenever there is bad weather. NV Energy says the policy is being put into effect to help mitigate fires that could be caused by lightning strikes or downed power lines. The policy also brings NV Energy into compliance with a state law requiring a natural disaster emergency plan. Residents on the mountain say that cutting power during a weather emergency would be bad enough, but cutting electricity would also affect cell phone service and leave residents unable to call 911 for assistance or call family members. Cutting the power would also affect water delivery service on the mountain. During a recent community meeting, NV Energy said it would do it’s best to make sure that power customers on the mountain would not have their cell service interrupted during an emergency. NV Energy also said that it would try to give customers a 48 hour notice before a possible shutdown and that most outages would only last 4-12 hours.
