NV Energy officials briefed the Elko County Commission on their June public-safety outage process, describing how wildfire risk forecasts and multi-agency coordination informed a planned deenergization that affected roughly 1,300 customers in the East Elko zone. The company said the outage began at 12:06 p.m. and customers were largely restored by about 8:55 p.m. that day.

The company’s subject-matter expert told the commission that “the incident commander has the final say” on any deenergization and that his team provides meteorology and fire-science recommendations to identify the highest-risk areas and a timeline for switching power off. He said the manual switching work requires line crews to perform pole-level changes so only targeted circuits, not entire substations or towns, are deenergized.

That timeline was set in advance because crews must travel to sectionalized circuits and manually open switches; the expert said the utility often works backward from an expected wind event to allow hours for field switching and safety patrols. He described June conditions as extreme — forecasted 50 mph winds, roughly 5% relative humidity and a burning index near 120 — and said the Great Basin Coordination Center and local National Weather Service offices participated in calls prior to the decision.

Katie Joe Collier, NV Energy’s public information officer for the June PSOM, said the company used email, SMS and phone calls to customers who had registered MyAccount profiles and that it established two customer resource centers in Elko County (an office location and the convention center) to provide water, snacks, device charging and free internet access during the outage. Collier said Green Cross customers — utility customers who rely on life‑support equipment — received personal phone calls offering assistance and, if needed, temporary hotel accommodations.

The briefing included operational distinctions NV Energy makes among three outage types: 1) planned PSOMs with advance public notice, 2) fire-season (sensitive protection) settings that make lines more responsive to faults, and 3) emergency deenergizations for active fire threats that are usually done quickly with little or no advance notice and sometimes at the substation level. The company said crews must patrol affected lines for damage before reenergization, which can extend restoration time if infrastructure is damaged or inaccessible.

Commissioners and members of the public raised several concerns: how customers in outlying areas learn whether they will be affected, whether well pumps and privately powered systems could be prioritized, and how the company maps parcels to PSOM zones. NV Energy staff demonstrated a public web tool where residents can enter an address to see whether it lies inside a PSOM planning zone, and they said notifications go only to customers who are inside an active PSOM zone or who have registered contact information.

Commissioners asked the utility to return to a future meeting as an action item to collect broader public comment; NV Energy agreed to come back for a follow-up presentation. The company also said it will consider broader paid media outreach and clearer geographic wording in alerts to reduce confusion experienced during the June event.

The presentation and public discussion emphasized the balance the utility is using between narrowly targeted outages to reduce wildfire risk and the practical limits of manual field switching and safety patrols.