Residents west of Cheyenne in the Harriman-Curt Gowdy area were scrambling Monday afternoon to prepare for an unexpected emergency power outage due to inclement weather, starting from about 4 p.m. and continuing until whenever conditions improve — potentially 24 hours or more.

Black Hills Energy had notified area residents of the outage a few hours before it was scheduled to start at 1 p.m., according to a news release.

At 5 p.m., the company reversed course, saying the situation had stabilized enough to avoid such drastic action. But the warning and suddenness of the situation had already upended many people’s day.

One resident of the Harriman-Curt Gowdy area, who asked not to be identified because her work does not authorize her to speak to the media, said she had to take off work ear

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