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Power Outages Cause Inconvenience For Thousands After Powerful Colorado Spring Storm

(CBS4) - Power outages across Colorado's Front Range caused an inconvenience for many on Saturday. Many street lights were without power in the Denver metro area, and dozens of businesses had to close because of the spring snowstorm.

"It went off about 12 o'clock last night," said Denver resident Dwayne Dunn. "When the heater came on, then all of a sudden it went off and we were like 'Well, what's going on?' And then everything went off, and then we got up, me and the wife, and we looked around and nobody had power."

A spokesperson with Xcel Energy said the storm that started Friday and continued into Saturday affected more than 200,000 customers, and for some that heavy snow caused damage to trees and power lines.

"We had a branch down that hit our phone line, so I pulled it off," said Kevin Kopp, a Denver resident.

Xcel was able to restore power to about 160,000 customers Saturday, but thousands more were left without power for the night. Kopp and his family were among them.

"Tonight will be cold, but we bought firewood, so we'll be fine," he said.

While a day without power wasn't too much of a problem for Kopp, his daughter had different thoughts.

"It's the worst," she said. "I can't call my friend, every time I try to do it, it just doesn't connect."

With how sporadic Colorado's weather is, Kopp said power outages are expected.

"They told us it was coming, we knew it would come, it's fine," said Kopp.

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