Columbia Gas temporarily halts service for nearly 4,000 Pittsburgh-area residents
BADEN, Pa. (KDKA) - Approximately 4,000 Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania customers in and around the Baden, Conway, Economy and Freedom communities in Beaver County are temporarily without natural gas service.
Columbia Gas shut down service "as a safety precaution after technicians identified an issue with natural gas introduced into the system by a third-party upstream gas supplier," according to a company press release Sunday.
The shutdown and restoration of service are expected to take several days, the company added. Early reports from Columbia Gas indicate this issue was not intentionally caused by someone or something.
A Columbia Gas spokesperson told KDKA-TV that crews are looking into the possibility that there may have been a pocket of air in the system. Extra crews from across Pennsylvania and Ohio have been called in to help with the restoration process.
A full list of streets affected by the outage can be found here.
With lows in the 40s on Monday morning, many people woke up with no heat. It seemed essential to warm up with a hot cup of coffee in Beaver County on Monday morning.
"First thing I thought of was I wonder if the coffee shop has gas," a customer said.
Brewed Awakening Coffee and Espresso Bar in Economy Borough doesn't have gas but they're still open.
"We don't have any heat, we can't do any of our baking, but we are all electric everywhere else so we can do coffee, I can do our breakfast sandwiches, everything is up and running and good to go. So we just don't have heat so just drink some more hot coffee," said Stefanie Ruggeri, the owner of Brewed Awakening Coffee and Espresso Bar.
Lee Gierczynski, a Columbia Gas spokesperson, said an issue was identified with natural gas introduced into the system by a third-party upstream gas supplier.
"Everything is under investigation," Gierczynski said. "They are looking at the possibility that there may have been a pocket of air that got into the system and when that happens, it can result in low gas or no gas condition for a customer, which could be an unsafe condition, which is why we took the precaution that we did."
It's all hands on deck with a command center set up in Economy. Gierczynski said they've mobilized crews from across Pennsylvania and even brought in crews from Columbia Gas Ohio.
Crews spent the night and morning turning off people's gas meters.
"Once that is done, plans are in place to re-introduce gas into the system, then crews will go door to door to restore their service, relight all their gas appliances and do safety checks," Gierczynski said.
Ambridge Area Middle School closed on Monday and students learned remotely.
Columbia Gas and the Red Cross opened a warming center at the Conway Borough Municipal Building. It will be open 24 hours a day until gas is restored in the communities. The warming center will provide refreshments and cots and blankets for people who need a warm place to sleep at night.
Columbia Gas anticipates the restoration process will take several days.
"I hope that it doesn't take that long, but if it does, we'll probably just keep doing what we're doing with hot sandwiches and stuff. Might get a little chilly but we'll figure out a way," Ruggeri said.
Customers are asked to leave their porch light on until their gas service is back on, which will help Columbia Gas crews identify homes that need service.
For customers not home during the service restoration process, door hangers will be left at their homes informing them of the outage and requesting they call Columbia Gas at 1-888-460-4332 for a service technician to be dispatched to restore service to their homes.