Press Release
City of Aspen Issues Local Emergency Declaration
Contact: Scott Miller, Acting City Manager, scott.miller@cityofaspen.com or 970-319-4754Denise White, Communications Director, denise.white@cityofaspen.com or 970-920-5293
Aspen, CO – December 29, 2020 – The City of Aspen has declared a local disaster emergency in response to the natural gas outage and its effects on the City.
Acting City Manager Scott Miller issued the declaration today at 2:35 p.m., which creates a state of emergency for Aspen. The declaration provides the city manager with the tools necessary to protect public health and safety. The declaration gives the city manager the authority to, among other things, shelter vulnerable populations for multiple days and access properties to protect vulnerable properties or individuals from injury or damage. Additionally, this declaration provides the City of Aspen the ability to activate the response and recovery aspect of applicable local and inter-jurisdictional disaster and emergency plans for aid and assistance.
As stated in the declaration, the City also faces the continuing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the constraints of the outage occurring during a holiday week. The ongoing natural gas outage has created the potential for significant risk to the community's safety and welfare based on the cold winter temperatures. The City believes this action will help to enact emergency action as needed to avert danger or damage.
The City Manager has the authority to issue a disaster emergency declaration for a period of up to 7 days. The declaration must be confirmed and extended by Aspen City Council to be effective for more than this time frame. Council will consider taking this action, if necessary, early next week.
You can read the full declaration here. For updates regarding the outage, visit blackhillsenergy.com/aspen or cityofaspen.com.
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