TOOELE, Utah — Chantel Stoddard would prefer to camp in her trailer in the mountains, but recently she and her husband have considered sleeping in their trailer in their driveway after multiple power outages stopped the air conditioning inside their home.
"Our house gets probably around 80, 85, but we were at my mom's house and they don't keep their house as cool in the day as we do, and theirs got up into the high 80s," Stoddard said.
Stoddard said the power has gone out in her Tooele neighborhood not once, not twice, but four times over the past couple of weeks.
"I personally work from home I'm like, if the power goes out, I can't work," Stoddard said.
According to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the average daily maximum number of customers in Utah without power in 2022 was 2,719. In 2023, it was 2,323, and in 2024 so far, it's 2,527. This includes customers with other power providers, not just Rocky Mountain Power.
Stoddard says in her 20 years living in Tooele, she's never experienced back-to-back outages like this.
"I just want to know why it keeps going out," Stoddard said.
"We're in wildfire season. A lot of our lines are put on what we call 'enhanced safety settings,' and what that does is if there's any contact or disturbance to a line, it'll de-energize," said Rocky Mountain Power spokesperson Jona Whiteside. "We do that so that we're not the cause of a fire, and that's actually what we saw in Tooele."
According to data, most Rocky Mountain Power outages from this past weekend around the state were restored within a couple of hours, but in Tooele from Friday into Saturday, it took over 11 hours for all customers' power to be restored.
"When power has gone out because we put them on the safety settings because of wildfire risk, before we can turn the power back on, we actually go out and patrol those lines physically to make sure there's nothing on the lines," Whiteside explained.
FOX 13 News asked Rocky Mountain Power if the recent outages are a supply versus demand issue. They said it's not, but added that such a thing is common in the Western United States during triple-digit days.
"We're a regulated utility, so if we were getting to a point where we felt like we couldn't supply what the customer needs, we are required to notify them and start taking measures. 'Hey, conserve energy here, conserve energy there,'" Whiteside said.
Rocky Mountain Power encourages customers to use their real-time outage map and keep their contact information up to date so they can get automated messages.
Stoddard says she recognizes that crews are doing what they can to keep the power running — it's all just a bit annoying.
"There's really not much you can do, just be prepared with stuff in your home to stay cool, keep your animals cool," Stoddard added.
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