No power until Christmas for storm-battered Mount Charleston

Residents of Mount Charleston are facing a chilly three-day wait before power is restored after one of the worst winter storms in recent memory, officials said.

NV Energy spokesman Mark Severts said crews were unable to work overnight because of the storm, which dropped several feet of snow on the mountain and knocked down countless trees.

Early reports indicated that more damage was caused throughout the night, Severts said. More power lines and poles are down, he said, and even when the main power line is restored, many individual service lines need to be repaired.

"It will be three days or so for the main line in Kyle Canyon," Severts said. "Off that, there are wires running to individual homes and cabins. You'll get the bulk of the power back after the main line is fixed, but it could take more days for the other lines."

Parts of Kyle Canyon have received more than 6 feet of snow since Saturday, with more falling all the time. NV Energy pulled its crews out when an avalanche advisory was issued Wednesday afternoon and the canyon's 1,100 residents were advised -- but not required -- to evacuate. County officials plan to re-evaluate the risk today, should the weather improve.

The hotel at the base of Kyle Canyon wasn't part of the advisory. County officials made the decision after consulting with officials at the Las Vegas Ski & Snowboard Resort, which is located in neighboring Lee Canyon and is open for business today .

Snow shovels, snow blowers and snowplows were in use Wednesday morning in the Old Town subdivision atop Mount Charleston. Roads in the area remained closed to all but residents and emergency workers.

"I've been shoveling for two days," said Jill Guttman, who is spending her first winter in the mountain community 35 miles from Las Vegas. "Plowing is kind of futile because of the berms."

Guttman said limbs from the pine trees have fallen on homes.

"Last night was so loud," she said. "I thought a tree fell on my house."

Guttman, like her neighbors, is coping. She has a wood stove and dry logs to burn. She left the contents of her powerless refrigerator out on the deck, where it will stay cool.

"A shower would be nice," she said, leaning on her shovel. "And a massage."

The power outage, more than anything else, has prompted many of the 200 full-time residents to get off the mountain, said Al Hirschorn, the self-proclaimed unofficial mayor of Mount Charleston.

"We turned away hundreds of cars Tuesday because they didn't have the right equipment (for winter driving)" said Hirschorn, the only resident remaining on his street in the Rainbow subdivision on the mountain Wednesday.

"People have left, and that's concerning," he said. "Power won't be on no sooner than Saturday, there's no power, no land (telephone) lines, we just got more avalanche warnings people are a little worried."

Hirschorn and his wife were able to keep the lights on by running generators, and they plan to stay put.

"Right now, everybody's in crisis mode,'' he said. "The snow is thick and wet. The roads are practically impassable even in my Jeep, and we're supposed to get two more feet over the next three days."

Hirschorn, an eight-year resident of the area, said this is the "toughest storm" he's seen, but the real insight comes from his neighbors who have lived on the mountain for more than three decades.

"They tell me they've never seen this amount of snow, and how wet it is, the weight, it just snaps trees," he said.

The Rainbow, Old Town, Cathedral and Echo subdivisions remained without power Wednesday. Electricity has been restored to The Resort at Mount Charleston, which is about 1,000 feet lower than the residential areas and just below the snow line.

At the resort hotel, a small group of well-dressed people mingled as employees set up for what worker Kimberly Edwards called "a tiny wedding."

On Tuesday night, a larger wedding party had booked all of the hotel's 62 rooms. Then the lights went out as the storm gathered.

"Only five people stayed," said Edwards, who noted that the hotel is more fortunate than nearby residents as power was restored early Wednesday.

The Red Cross opened an emergency shelter at Bilbray Elementary School, 9370 Brent Lane, at 4 p.m. to house residents without power.

Across the Las Vegas Valley, the system of dozens of detention basins defused serious threats of flash flooding, said Tim Sutko, senior hydrologist for the Clark County Regional Flood Control District. "All the flood-control stuff is working.''

Most detention basins were 25 percent full Wednesday, with the Blue Diamond, Tropicana and Red Rock basins working as they were designed. Without them, Sutko said, low places in the valley such as the Charleston Boulevard underpass, "would have been closed for the past couple days."

High water did force the closure of several intersections and roads throughout the Las Vegas area Wednesday, though no serious damage or life-threatening situations were reported.

Heavy rains and flooding also forced the closure of Spring Mountain Ranch State Park in Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire State Park near Overton, and Echo Canyon and Spring Valley state parks near Pioche.

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and Zion National Park in Utah also remained closed for a second day on Wednesday.

With nine days left, this month unofficially ranks as the fifth-wettest December on record for Las Vegas, with just over an inch and a half of rain recorded at the valley's official weather station at McCarran International Airport.

The rain was expected to taper off Wednesday night. Today's forecast for Las Vegas predicted mostly sunny weather with a high temperature of 59 degrees.

Review Journal writers Keith Rogers and Antonio Planas contributed to this report. Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.