Columbia Gas restoring service in Beaver County

As of Thursday evening, Columbia Gas said service has been restored to more than 90% of the approximately 4,000 customers in Beaver County whose service was disrupted last weekend.

Customers in Baden, Conway, Economy, Freedom and small sections of Brighton Heights and Rochester have been impacted. You can find a list of all the streets here.

Watch the report in the video above.

Columbia Gas has announced a phased approach, with customers being divided into six groups based on the scope and complexity of the service restoration in their area.

“We initially had to go to each home affected by this and turn off their gas meter. Once we did that, we were able to purge out the lines and then reintroduce gas into the system,” spokesperson Lee Gierczynski said.

Restoration has been completed for Phases 1 through 4, as work continues in the remaining two groups, the company said in its Thursday evening update. Another update is expected 9 a.m. Friday.

Click through the gallery below to see where the company says service has been impacted and where it has been restored.

“The number of houses on the street, the geography that might be involved, things like that. The full restoration for customers is going to take several days,” Gierczynski said.

If you are experiencing an outage and are unsure if it is connected to this particular outage, call Columbia Gas’ customer care center at 888-460-4332.

The company said it shut down service as a safety precaution after Columbia Gas technicians found an issue with natural gas brought into the system by a “third-party upstream gas supplier.”

Columbus Gas has an agreement with a third-party gas supplier to supply gas to their system. Columbus Gas is a distribution company, meaning it buys gas from other gas companies and distributes it. A spokesperson for Columbia Gas was unable to name the third-party company when asked.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we decided to shut down the system to make sure that customers were safe,” Gierczynski said.

The issue is under investigation, Columbia Gas said, but nothing currently indicates that this was intentional. One possibility is air was introduced to the system, according to Gierczynski, but nothing is definitive yet.

“So when air is introduced, sometimes that can create a low gas or no gas condition for customers, and that can create an unsafe condition,” he said. “So, we need to make sure that air is out of the system, and then there’s just 100% gas in there.”

Gierczynski confirmed the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission is also investigating, per protocol, in regard to outages. Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 has reached out to the PUC for comment.

“We are gathering resources from across the state, and even from some of our neighboring states, to help assist in the restoration effort for these customers, so those resources are being mobilized, but we expect this entire process to take several days at the least,” Gierczynski said.

Overnight Sunday into Monday, Columbia Gas technicians were turning off all gas meters in the affected area. As of 1 p.m. Monday, that process was complete.

“Once everybody is off, then they will purge gas from the system, reintroduce gas, good gas back into the system, and then they will go back house to house to conduct safety checks, relight their service, relight all of their gas appliances,” Gierczynski said.

In the meantime, there is a warming shelter open at the Conway Borough Municipal Building on First Avenue. It has refreshments, cots, and blankets for impacted customers who need a place to stay.

James Neal lives in New Sewickley Township. He’s one of thousands of customers impacted.

“There was no warning, and now here we are. It’s not bitter cold out, it’s not the middle of winter, but it’s a big inconvenience … my elderly neighbors, for instance, they don’t have a second source of heat,” Neal said.

“Fortunately, we are here in October, and we are still in the 50s and 40s, so it doesn’t look like we will have to use those type of services for customers,” Gierczynski said.