Los Alamos County plans July 7 power outage near Oppenheimer Drive

Power will go out for three hours at the 505 Oppenheimer Suite and the 505 Apartments starting at 5:30 p.m. July 7 while Los Alamos County electric distribution crews replace a switch and a junction box. The 557 Flats will not be affected. Before 7 p.m., residents and business owners should back up computer systems, protect refrigeration and arrange for temporary closure if needed, because service is expected to be down through the evening before it comes back later that night.

Crews will begin prepping the work area Tuesday, June 30, with trucks, cones and signage in place from 8 a.m. on the northwest side of Oppenheimer Drive. County electric trucks will be stationed at two locations along that side of the street, the sidewalk there will be closed during the project, and motorists are being asked to use caution while the road remains open.

The county posted the notice June 29, giving tenants, owners and nearby drivers more than a week to plan around the interruption. The work is being treated as a scheduled infrastructure repair rather than an emergency response, which lets crews line up the outage window in advance and gives affected buildings a clearer expectation for restoration later that night. Residents with questions can contact the Los Alamos County Department of Public Utilities Customer Care Center at 505-662-8333 or CustomerCare@lacnm.us.

The July 7 shutdown is small compared with other electric incidents the county has dealt with in recent years. A 2022 outage near Oppenheimer and Trinity affected about 1,300 customers, and a 2025 Barranca Mesa outage left about 585 households without power. Against that backdrop, the Oppenheimer Drive work is a targeted maintenance outage, but it also shows the ongoing need to replace worn components in the county’s electric system to keep service reliable for homes and businesses.