Gas service interrupted for customers in California Borough
Pressure problems to a natural gas line on Orchard Street in California Borough Friday morning is interrupting service for 578 Columbia Gas customers.
Company spokesman Scott Waitlevertch said, “It’s not a gas leak. We’re having pressure problems on a line in California Borough. We don’t know the root cause. We’re in the process of turning off 578 customers in California Borough – about 60 blocks are being affected, not the entire borough.”
Waitlevertch said Columbia Gas was alerted to the problem about 8 a.m. Friday when a customer called experiencing pressure problems. As the company investigated, they found a number of customers having problems on Orchard Street.
Gas is being turned off in customers’ homes as the problem is investigated and repaired. Waitlevertch expected the process will go on through the afternoon and into the evening.
“It’s labor intensive. We go door to door and turn off the meter,” Waitlevertch said. “We’ll continue to investigate the root cause, get it repaired, re-pressurize the system and then go door-to-door to do safety checks and relight customers’ appliances: furnace, hot water tank, stove – whatever natural gas appliances they have.”
Columbia noted in a press release, “The company is asking those customers whose service was interrupted to have their homes prepared for crews to arrive. Homes where service has not been restored are asked to keep their porch lights on. For customers not home during the service restoration process, a door hanger will be left at their home informing them of the outage and requesting they call Columbia Gas at 1-888-460-4332 for a service technician to be dispatched to their home to restore service.”
Because of frigid temperatures, a warming center has been set up at the North Conference Wing of California University’s Convocation Center at 900 Third St, Waitlevertch said, also noting Columbia Gas has set up a command center there as well.
Waitlevertch said, “We want our customers to be safe and they need to be patient as we work through this.”
Earlier this week, power was interrupted for approximately 140 Columbia Gas customers in Fairbank and 236 customers in New Salem when a natural gas pipeline in Uniontown suffered damage from a private third-party contractor working on private project