A 83-year-old woman uses a portable oxygen machine in her Boulder Meadows mobile home after experiencing a troubling fear of power outages due to her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Carolyn Mills sits in her home in Boulder Meadows mobile home park on Feb. 12. Mills, 83, is on oxygen and battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and needs access to electricity for her oxygen machine s.
It’s the same house that she and her husband, Larry, settled in nearly 50 years ago and raised a family in. Nothing has changed since then except that the trees have grown, she said. She now lives there with her snow-white cat, Bella Sophia Rosa. It’s the same home that the widowed Mills thought she’d die in during a ferocious windstorm and subsequent power outage in December.
A portable, battery-operated, oxygen machine used by Carolyn Mills. “I got so frightened, and I couldn’t get the fear under control,” Mills told the Daily Camera as the sun from her window illuminated her amber hair. That storm triggered a deep, dark fear that she had when she had contracted West Nile Virus in the early 2000s. At the time, Mills recalled, there were parts of her mind that were “blacker than the pitchest black.
” Mills eventually learned how to manage those triggers, she said. Mills, who turned 83 on Tuesday, is battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an incurable and progressive lung disease. Mills uses a portable, battery-powered oxygen machine to help her breathe. She has two separate batteries for the machine, which resembles a small suitcase, each with a life of around four hours.
She was unable to charge them when she spent about 24 hours without power from Dec. 17 to midday Dec. 18. That night without power threw her back into that dark space. She and Bella Sophia Rosa lay in bed under the covers. Mills called it the most terrifying night of her life.
“The cat was just hanging onto me, and I just kept getting more and more frightened, and finally my breathing was. …” Mills paused, then simulated gasping noises.
“I couldn’t get enough air in to supplement the oxygen that I was using, no matter what. I just thought, ‘If this keeps up much longer, I truly will die. ’” Sophia Bella Rosa, Carolyn Mills’ cat, sits on a chair at her home in Boulder Meadows mobile home park on Feb. 12. Sophia stayed close to Mills during a ferocious December windstorm that knocked out Mills’ power.
Mills still has a landline phone, and she doesn’t have internet access. So, no email.
Additionally, some of her neighbors left for Denver to get relief from the outages. That made it nearly impossible for her to receive updates on when her power would be restored. All of that exacerbated the impact of what Mills and other Boulder residents called insufficient communications from Xcel Energy during its public safety power shutoffs, which, at its worst point, left more than 22,000 Boulder County customers without power.
That sparked calls for reform in Xcel’s practices from Boulder city officials and customers and prompted Colorado Public Utilities Commission staffers to draft new rules for the shutoffs. Those new rules are expected to be drafted by the end of the year, PUC spokesperson Megan Castle said.
Mills had intermittent power through that December weekend, and she was able to charge her oxygen for a bit, and to use the refrigerator to keep her medication cool.on which people can take a survey about the public safety power shutoffs and share how the outages impacted them. To its credit, Mills said, Xcel has been helpful and communicative in the power outages since December. Xcel staffers told her they’re doing the best they can, and she believes them.
She has lost power intermittently during the storms and shutoffs since, but not to the same degree, she said. Craig Towler is the director of public policy and advocacy for the Boulder-based Center for People With Disabilities. It’s a center for independent living, or CIL, that serves people with disabilities in Boulder, Broomfield, Gilpin, Weld, Jefferson and Adams counties. Carolyn Mills, 83, is on oxygen and battling chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and needs access to electricity for her oxygen machines.
He said that, leading up to the December shutoffs and windstorm, the organization educated people with disabilities on how to prepare go bags, access transportation and have a communication plan during an emergency. The center also helped people apply for emergency assistance programs. Staff also helped develop custom emergency plans for people with electronic medical devices and refrigerated medications.
“Beyond the immediate risks, shutoffs also highlight broader systemic issues, such as gaps in accessible communication, emergency planning, and infrastructure, that historically disproportionately impacted people with disabilities,” Towler stated in an email to the Daily Camera. To Towler, preparation is key for people in vulnerable communities ahead of a public safety power shutoff.
He laid out eight important steps people and their loved ones can take: • Create a personal emergency plan that includes backup options for power, transportation and communication. • Register for alerts and notifications for emergency alerts and advanced notice alerts of potential public safety power shutoffs. • Identify backup power sources for essential equipment. It’s important to understand what your specific life-sustaining power needs are so you can plan accordingly.
• Keep important contact information readily available, including family contacts, healthcare information and emergency contacts• Maintain an emergency kit with essentials such as medications, water, non-perishable food, a portable phone charger and flashlights. • Stay informed through multiple channels — not only one’s city or county, but also alerts from CILs and other services that provide real-time and accessible notifications.
This might include radio stations such as Aftersight that provide information for people who are blind, registering for BOCO Alerts, or apps such as EverBridge.
“We can help create personalized preparedness plans based on your needs,” he said. The sun shines through the home of Carolyn Mills in February. Mills and her late husband, Larry, lived in this home since the 1970s. Mills has been through hell and back with her north Boulder home, and she’s not ready to give it up.
She moved to Boulder as a senior in high school in the early 1960s. Mills fell in love with the freedom she felt — the freedom to be herself.
“I just felt like I belonged here, and the mountains just called to me,” she said. “My folks would let me take my little Willys Jeep all by myself, all packed with food and water, and go explore all day long. After a first marriage, Mills found solace, love and acceptance when she met Larry. Their landlady introduced the two and they connected.
When she first hugged Larry, she thought, ” ‘This is the man I dreamed of. This is home,’ ” she recalled.
“And we were married within three months. ” Mills feels better prepared for an abrupt outage. Her daughter, who lives in Longmont, has an oxygen concentrator that Mills can use.essentially purifies a room’s air so that people with breathing problems can get the oxygen they need. One of Mills’ neighbors can also contact her daughter if Mills loses power.
They loved listening to records together — particularly the psychedelic soundscapes of early Pink Floyd and The Moody Blues. Larry died in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning. Mills later recalled, “He’d look up at me, and a tear would trickle down his face, and he would say, ‘Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me today.
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Boulder Meadows Windstorm Power Outage C.O.P.D. Fear Powerlessness West Nile Virus Oxygen Machine Cat
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