It's been a tough week in Colorado if you struggle with the heat, especially if you don't have access to any sort of cooling measures. Residents say that's what happened in the Columbine Hills neighborhood in Littleton when the power went out for hours at a time. And they say this has been happening since last summer.
"We feel like prisoners in our own neighborhood," said resident Brandon Darnell.
Darnell s ays he's pretty sick of losing power at his Littleton home. He says it's never a brief outage.
"It's a while. It's like, I think at minimum usually four hours," said Darnell.
He says it has cost him money.
"I've had to throw a lot of money worth of meat away," said Darnell.
And it's affected his job.
"When the summer, when the power goes out, it's like a heat box," said Darnell. "In the middle of the night when the power shuts off and I wake up and I'm up all night. That's why I'm home right now. I rescheduled work because I got, like, two hours of sleep last night."
He says it's an ongoing problem. So far this summer he's counted five major outages.
Last summer a CBS Colorado investigation found the same area had six outages. Back then, Xcel Energy said they were caused by wildfire protection technology which shuts down power if there's an issue with the power lines. It said in the Littleton neighborhood the system was installed incorrectly.
Darnell says this year he's tried to ask what is causing this new round of outages but hasn't gotten any answers.
"Every time it's just a person who answered. It's like a call center, I think. Something like that. Like, very impersonal," said Darnell.
A spokesperson for Xcel Energy said in a statement:
"We understand being without electric power for any length of time can be frustrating and we appreciate our customers' patience and understanding when they do experience an outage.
We are aware of an issue in the area and are investigating. Our records indicate there have been four outages in this area since August 2025. The first outage was due to a snowstorm on May 5; the second outage on May 13 was due to a broken insulator that was located and restored in less than 1 ½ hours; an outage on June 18 was the result of a failed underground cable; and an outage this morning is under investigation.
Outages can be caused by a number of factors - weather, cars hitting poles, animal contact, or technical problems. The outages were unrelated to last year's event. Xcel Energy crews work as quickly as possible to safely restore power in any outage situation and again, we appreciate our customers' patience."
Darnell says he's frustrated with the company.
"They don't offer compensation, no discounts. They actually raised our rates after last summer," said Darnell.
He wants answers and accountability and he hopes the outages stop so he can get back to living his life.
"I don't know, I just, I just hope we get better," said Darnell.