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Winter Storm Causes Thousands To Lose Power

DENVER (CBS4)- The winter storm has caused widespread power outages which have left thousands without power along the Front Range.

Xcel Energy tells CBS4 that 31,000 customers, including homes and businesses, were without power in the Denver metro area and Greeley on Monday morning.

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A downed power line kept a portion of University Boulevard closed to traffic on Monday morning.

Monday's snow was not Colorado's famous powder, but more like Elmer's glue after it stuck to leaves and shovels.

"I heard that crack above my head and I was in the wrong place so I had to scoot out of there," said Clark Strickland.

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An estimated 22,000 of those sustained a power outage of more than five minutes, others suffered momentary outages.

"Fortunately for us we cut trees," said Larry Guerra who owns a tree-cutting service, "We were doing a job on the next block so that might come in handy for us."

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"A transformer popping in the back yard for lines being down on them," said Ron Mosbeck with UtiliQuest.

There are 55 Xcel Energy crews working on solving the power outages, in addition to 15 contract crews and 16 tree crews.

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There are also downed power lines in some of the areas.

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PHOTO GALLERY: Several Inches Of Snow Falls Across Metro Area

LINK: Xcel Energy Outage Map

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