Power being restored gradually in Northern Colorado after planned outages due to wind

Xcel Energy says power is being restored gradually to the customers in Northern Colorado who are in an area where planned power outages went into effect on Friday. The outages were put in place because of powerful winds blowing through Colorado and concerns about wildfires. A red flag warning that was in effect during the day expired at 6 p.m.

Those winds were strong enough to knock over semi trucks, force the evacuation of a school and led transportation officials to close highways. Some of the strongest wind gusts that were recorded were 78 mph in Virginia Dale (in Larimer County) and 70 mph in Eaton (in Weld County).

The planned outages started at approximately 8 a.m. and forced at least five Northern Colorado schools to close. At one point during the day Friday, almost 115,000 Xcel Energy customers were without power. The outages included homes and businesses on either side of Fort Collins including along Interstate 25. From Laporte to Timnath, stoplights went dark and businesses closed for the day.

In the evening, Xcel sent out a statement saying thousands of customers in that area had already had their power restored and that they expect most other customers to see their power restored sometime later in the night or overnight.

"Crews must visually inspect the lines for damage before any necessary repairs can be made, and power restored," Xcel Energy's statement read. "Conducting inspections and making repairs prior to re-energization is critical to protect public safety and preventing wildfires."

Xcel says customers who still don't have power can check the estimated restoration time by visiting the company's Electric Outage Map web page.

During the windy day, the Colorado Department of Transportation restricted high-profile vehicles and light trailers on Highway 40, Interstate 70 and Interstate 76. Road closures were also put in place on part of I-70 and Highway 24.