Strong winds topple trees, cause damage and power outages in Denver area

DENVER — Strong winds Saturday and overnight toppled trees leading to damaged homes and power outages across the Denver metro area.

Winds over 90 mph were recorded in multiple spots along the Front Range, according to the National Weather Service. The Marshall area and other parts of Boulder County saw 95 mph wind gusts overnight.

Uprooted trees leads to damaged homes, businesses and vehicles

Those powerful wind gusts uprooted trees in neighborhoods across the metro, including in Littleton, where a massive tree fell onto a home off Santa Fe Drive and W. Mineral Avenue. No injuries were reported. The extent of the damage is unknown.

A tree fell on a house on Highland Drive in Littleton Saturday evening, causing extensive damage to the home’s roof. No injuries occurred.

In the same area, toppled trees were seen scattered throughout the grounds of Littleton Cemetery Sunday morning. Damage from falling trees was observed in other parts of Littleton, including a home off Prince Street.

“You hear a steady breeze and then all of a sudden, there's just loud wind, you could tell that it was a gust and you could hear the trees moving. It was scary,” said Littleton resident Ryan Engelland.

For Engelland, it was a sleepless night.

“I was just in this front room here reading,” he recalled. “And all of a sudden I did hear a large kind of thump. And I looked out the window, I thought it was just one of our branches.”

His Prince Street home was damaged when a neighbor's tree fell onto his roof.

In Centennial, the windy weather uprooted trees and caused major damage to homes in the 6000 block of S. Elizabeth Way. A toppled tree also damaged vehicles in the area of S. Clarkson Street and E. Easter Way, according to the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office. No injuries were reported.

Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office

The roof of an under-construction building in Adams County collapsed due to high winds Saturday. The debris forced the closure of roads in the area, but they have since reopened.

A fire caused by a downed power line heavily damaged a home in the 2500 block of Fenton Street in Edgewater Sunday morning. The fire burned the back side of the home and extended into the interior, causing smoke and heat damage to the area where the power feed enters the structure, firefighters said.

More than 150K Xcel Energy customers in Colorado without power

The storm also knocked out power in places, leaving about 100,000 customers in the dark, according to Xcel Energy.

In total, more than 150,000 customers are without power as of Sunday morning. Although a portion of the outages — 55,000 customers — were planned as part of Xcel Energy’s public safety power shutoffs.

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Xcel Energy de-energized more than 600 miles of power lines at 3 p.m. Saturday for public safety reasons. The planned outage will continue until at least Sunday, but exact outage restoration times will be contingent upon the extent of damages caused by the extreme winds.

The company said power restoration work due to high winds continues Sunday. Xcel said Crews are assessing damage now and will begin working to restore power in the impacted areas after the winds have died down.

Power was cut off in other areas of the Front Range due to strong wind. Thousands of Poudre Valley REA customers were in the dark as winds knocked trees and power lines over. The outage number was below 9,000 as of Sunday afternoon.

West Metro Fire said crews responded to nearly 50 electrical emergency calls this weekend with reports of either trees into power lines, power lines down, or sparking lines.

Firefighters in Evergreen were busy as well, but they said most of the electrical hazards they responded to involved de-energized lines. However, some of the calls involved active lines, one causing a small tree fire.

Winds wreak havoc on roads, traffic

Winds also created havoc on the roads. A semi-tractor trailer overturned on the eastbound ramp to C-470 from I-70 Saturday night. And several intersections in the metro are without functioning traffic lights.

The Colorado Department of Transportation shut down both directions of I-25 from Wellington to the state line Saturday afternoon due to strong winds. The interstate reopened Sunday morning.

High wind warning expires for Denver

A high wind warning was allowed to expire for Denver and metro communities to the east, including Denver International Airport, but the warning remains in effect until Noon for many areas including the western suburbs of Denver and areas stretching north through Fort Collins.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in Boulder offered some good news for the metro in its early Sunday update. “Worst has passed for Denver - Ft Collins I-25 Corridor.”

Still, winds in Denver could reach between 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to 70 mph on Sunday.

“Still very windy in and immediately adjacent to the foothills, and also over the northeast plains through this morning, but gradually decreasing today,” said the NWS.

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