Thousands without natural gas service in Beaver County - The Times

Thousands still without natural gas service in Beaver County

Thousands without natural gas service in Beaver County
Chrissy Suttles

Thousands of Beaver County residents remain without natural gas Monday after Columbia Gas shut down service as a safety precaution Sunday night.

As many as 4,000 Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania customers in Baden, Conway, Economy and Freedom are affected by the outage.

Columbia Gas cut service “out of an abundance of caution” after technicians identified an issue with natural gas introduced into the system by a third-party gas supplier. Service restoration is expected to take several days; emergency officials report some customers may not have service restored until Tuesday.

Technicians started the process of turning off all gas meters in the area Sunday. Next, the company will restore the flow of natural gas into the system and crews will go door-to-door to perform safety checks and relight natural gas appliances. All Columbia Gas employees and contractors wear a company-issued photo identification badge.

Customers not home when technicians arrive to restore service will receive a door hanger requesting they call Columbia Gas at 1-888-460-4332 to dispatch a service technician. Those whose service is not restored are asked to keep their porch lights on.

A full list of streets affected by the outage can be found at www.columbiagaspa.com/services/alert-center.

Columbia Gas is working with the American Red Cross and emergency management officials to open a warming center 12 p.m. Monday at the Conway Borough Municipal Building, 801 First Ave. The shelter will have refreshments and cots and blankets for customers in need of overnight accommodations during the outage.