What Really Happened During the Power Outage?

Washington County Blackout: How Crews Brought the Grid Back Online

A massive transmission failure left most of Washington County in the dark Thursday evening, cutting power to tens of thousands of customers from St. George and Washington City to Ivins, Hurricane, La Verkin and communities near Zion National Park.

Listen Here: Dixie Power COO Colin Jack on Southern U-Talk on KDXU

The outage began about 5:15 p.m., during triple-digit heat. Rocky Mountain Power reported more than 14,000 customers without electricity at one point, while Dixie Power’s outage affected roughly 30,000 customers. Dixie Power said the problem originated on transmission infrastructure outside its system, and the specific root cause remained under investigation Friday.

Getting the lights back on wasn’t as simple as flipping a switch.

Restoring Power: The Complex Path to Recovery

Appearing Friday on KDXU’s Southern U-Talk with Dale Desmond, electrical engineer and Dixie Power Chief Operating Officer Colin Jack explained that utilities had to carefully rebuild and balance the system as generation became available. Jack said crews had to coordinate which sections of the grid could be energized without overloading the limited power supply.

A Coordinated Effort: Utilities Unite to Restore Electricity

At about 7:30 p.m., Dixie Power had enough electricity to serve only about 25% of its normal load, prompting plans for rolling outages — roughly one hour of power for every four hours without it. All 10 electric entities serving Washington County worked together to restart local generating resources, restore critical facilities and gradually reconnect customers.

Dixie Power COO Colin Jack

“Not caused by a bad actor. Nobody's hacked in and turned something off. What caused it to trip, to be determined.”

-Colin Jack, COO - Dixie Power

Jack also pushed back on speculation surrounding the blackout, stressing during the KDXU interview that it was “Not caused by a bad actor. Nobody's hacked in and turned something off. What caused it to trip, to be determined,” and was not the result of the region simply running out of generating capacity. Instead, the event involved the transmission system that delivers electricity into the county.

Power Restored: An End to Washington County’s Blackout

Rocky Mountain Power likewise restored customers in stages to protect the grid from another failure. By 10:30 p.m., Dixie Power reported about 90% of its load restored. At 10:55 p.m., the utility announced its system was fully back online, ending one of Washington County’s most widespread blackouts in years.