Rawlins Slowly Reopens After 36 Hours With No Power & Stranded Motorists On I-80

It took at 36 hours, but most of Rawlins had power restored Tuesday as a fast and furious spring snowstorm wreaked havoc in southcentral Wyoming. The Carbon County Sheriff's Office spent the day rescuing residents and helping snow-stranded drivers.

Andrew Rossi
May 19, 2026
7 min read

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More than 36 hours after losing power during an intense spring snowstorm, Rawlins and other communities along the Interstate 80 corridor in Carbon County were still without electricity.

Fortunate for most people, the bulk of the outage has been restored by Tuesday afternoon. Rocky Mountain Power workers were repairing the damaged transmission line that caused the outage, which they had been working on since 3 p.m. Monday.

“The Carbon County Dispatch Center, jail, and courthouse are all running on primary power now,” Carbon County Sheriff Alex Bakken told Cowboy State Daily. ... "There's still some minor localized outages in the Rawlins area, but it appears the bulk of power is restored at this time," he said.

Bakken and his team worked throughout the night to complete their regular duties while also responding to dozens of drivers stuck on I-80 because of the winter conditions. ... “It got pretty ticklish pretty quick,” he said. “A large-scale incident doesn't necessarily mean that the normal calls stopped coming in. It was a ton of moving pieces, but Rawlins is open.”

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Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.