By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
Raton Public Service has posted they will be shutting off power into Raton on Thursday evening March 12, 2026, from 6:00 p.m. Thursday evening to 6:00 a.m. Friday morning to make emergency repairs on the transmission lines coming into Raton from the Gardner Road substation.
RPS has been testing poles and in that process have found a couple of poles on the transmission line coming into town from the Gardner Road substation to be in very bad shape according to RPS General Manager Dave Piancino. After verifying the test results RPS has contacted 4G out of Clovis, a pole replacement contractor to do the work. 4G is familiar with RPS as they helped with the upgrade in the past.
According to Piancino the contractor will be in Raton early in the week and Piancino will be at the Tuesday March 10 City Commission meeting with an update on the work plan. As this is a very high voltage transmission line pole replacement can be very dangerous with the lines energized therefore the outage is necessary for the safety of the work crews and the public. This line is the only line coming into Raton from the Gardner Road substation which means there are no other electric sources available to power the City of Raton at this time.
The 12 hour time frame is also a worst case scenario. Planning for the worst and hoping for the best which could be only a few hours, which will be dependent on how well the work goes and how much prep work can be completed before the power has to be cut.
County Fire Marshall Nate Sandoval also noted in his statement that, “Many residents have asked why the outage is scheduled during nighttime hours rather than during the day. In most cases, utilities schedule work overnight because electrical demand is significantly lower, which allows sections of the grid to be safely isolated while crews perform repairs. Lower demand also helps crews restore power more smoothly once the work is completed.” County Fire Marshall Statement can be read here
Also RPS will have to coordinate with Tri-State Transmission to restore the power to allow a smooth restoration of power to Raton, which will take some time to accomplish. Once the power is back on from Tri-State, RPS will bring each circuit in town online to prevent an overload to the system. Of note also is MCMC is making preparations to allow oxygen users to use their facilities during the outage should that be necessary.
KRTN will update this story as details become available.
