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Officials warn NV Energy's broad emergency shutdowns can create secondary crises
Summary
The Elko County fire chief told commissioners that NV Energys emergency de-energization during the Spring Creek Fire cut power across a wide area, affecting hospitals, schools and fire stations and raising public-safety concerns.
Elko County's fire chief told commissioners that NV Energy's emergency de-energization policy can shut power over a broad area and that in the Spring Creek event "the substation that they have to shut it off is on Last Chance Road in Elko. And so that shuts off from Elko all the way to Lemoille. And that includes the hospital, the high school, all of our fire stations."
The chief said the shutoff practice differs from scheduled public-safety power outages and is executed from a control room in Reno that monitors fires and fire cameras: "It's done from a control room in the Reno area. They have a watch office that they stood up in this last year that they monitor radio traffic that's going on on the fires, the fire cameras." He said that in at least one case the utility made a decision to turn power off before local crews were contacted, and he warned of potential "secondary emergencies" when power is lost countywide: disabled traffic signals impede evacuations and residents in the county's Green Cross program risk losing power for medical devices.
The chief said the district is working with NV Energy to try to narrow the geographic scope of emergency shutoffs and noted concern about the timing of fires this season. The transcript records a forceful personal opinion from the chief: "I think it's stupid to turn the power off," which he offered while also saying shutoffs can sometimes be the right call. No NV Energy representative spoke during the meeting and commissioners asked staff to continue discussions with the utility.
