NV Energy cuts power overnight to 470 users on Mount Charleston
About 470 NV Energy customers living near Mount Charleston will be without power until about 9 a.m. Friday, according to NV Energy.
The utility began what it calls a Public Safety Outage Management event, cutting power in an area with dangerously high winds.
PSOM is a key measure of defense to help protect the community and environment from wildfires. During a PSOM event, power is shut off for safety in order to help prevent power lines or debris blowing into power lines and other equipment from causing a wildfire when certain environmental conditions are met.
“We had been monitoring weather conditions on Mt. Charleston since early this week and the forecast did not meet our threshold for proactive de-energization,” said Jesse Murray, vice president of electric delivery and natural disaster protection. “These winds escalated quickly, and it was necessary for us to activate a Public Safety Outage Management event to help ensure the safety of our customers on Mt. Charleston.”
The outage runs for the duration of the weather event and an estimate of how long it will take crews to inspect the lines for damage, vegetation or debris in order to begin safely restoring power.
Impacted customers have been notified via phone, text and email messages.
Winds at Red Rock reached 53 mph on Thursday with gusts into the upper 40s reported at other Las Vegas Valley locations.
A red flag warning to advise about possible erratic fire conditions runs from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday for much of the region.
Thursday evening could also include blowing dust as winds are forecast to remain just as strong.
Scattered showers are possible after 11 a.m. Friday. The weather service says the odds are about 40 percent.
The Friday high will drop to about 71 and winds will be 16-21 mph with gusts to 40 mph.
Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Marv_in_Vegas on Twitter.
