Gas Service Disrupted For Hundreds Of Rostraver Homeowners On Thanksgiving Eve
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ROSTRAVER TOWNSHIP (KDKA) -- The Thanksgiving Day turkey may not be ready by dinnertime for some homes in Rostraver Township this holiday.
The reason? Columbia Gas crews have been making the rounds across the township this Thanksgiving Eve, going from one home to another, shutting off gas service to about 400 homes because of an unexpected problem.
"We lost pressure in a natural gas distribution line regulator station nearby," Columbia Gas spokeswoman Sarah Barczyk said. "As a result, we had to shut off gas to about 400 customers in the area of Route 51 and I-70 in Rostraver."
Gas lines will be checked when all the gas has been turned off to the customers in the service area connected to the distribution system.
Then, service technicians have to go house-to-house to restore service and make certain everything is working properly. That is a time consuming process, because if residents aren't at home, service crews can't go inside the house.
At the home of Bill Welsh and his family, they have three space heaters running, keeping the inside temperature at 67 degrees.
"Thanksgiving is at my mother-in-law's home," Welsh said. "We're going there, so we are still going to have our Thanksgiving."
It's never a good time to turn people's gas service off, but with so many home-cooked Thanksgiving meals and family get-togethers, well, you get the picture.
Dennis Westover said, "I seen the trucks, got cold, so I went downstairs and realized the gas was off. I thought about going to my mother-in-law's house, but then she might not have gas either."
For more information on the outage, visit Columbia Gas's website here.
Late Wednesday night, Columbia Gas crews started restoring service to the customers who were home.
"Customers should not try to re-light any gas themselves," Barczyk said.
