For as long as 55-year-old Hopi Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma has been alive, high-voltage power lines have cut across Hopi lands in northeast Arizona, carrying vast amounts of power long distances throughout the Southwest.

But residents of the Hopi Reservation have never been connected to that grid. Instead, tribal members have relied on a single power line that runs roughly 30 miles east and west across high desert punctuated by three distinctive mesas, home to 12 distinct villages, including some of the oldest inhabited communities in the United States.

Those who live more than a mile away from that line — nearly 3,000 people — have no access to electricity. Families need to rely on generators to power everything from refrigerators to medical devices.

The rest of the reservation is connected to the grid, but the power is unreliable and outages can sometimes last days.

"If you have a power surge or any kind of power outage, you're definitely going to lose that power to that equipment that somebody's life might be reliant on," Nuvangyaoma says.

The tribe thought those days without reliable electricity were about to change.