PULLMAN, Wash. — Avista estimates that natural gas for the 37,000 residents on the Palouse will be restored by the end of the day Tuesday.
For the last 40 hours, residents have been without heat, hot water and other services. This has been called the largest natural gas outage in Avista’s history.
There have been 400 crew members assigned to this issue who have been helping with the restoration efforts. They will be working from 6 a.m. – 10 p.m. until residents receive natural gas.
At this time, the complete natural gas restoration for Avista customers is estimated to be complete by the end of the day Tuesday.
Since this outage is affecting a wide range of areas, Avista has provided a map which indicated the order of restoration and the time window that crews will be in each area. Critical customers, such as hospitals and medical facilities will be prioritized. For more information about the estimated restoration times in your area, go to the Avista website.
As natural gas is back on, customers will receive a notification within 24 hours of their planned relight that crews are headed to their area.
The relight process involves a service person knocking on a door and entering the property when a resident or business owner is present. An adult will need to be present to let the service person inside. Customers are asked not to leave doors to homes unlocked. All field personnel conducting relights will have identification.
Once a residence is relit, Avista will check the appliances and make sure everything is running properly.
If you are not home when a service person comes by, they will leave you a card urging you to contact Avista to make sure someone can come by.
“Our top priority remains the same – to restore natural gas as quickly and safely as possible to our customers. We are keenly aware of the hardship, stress and frustration people are experiencing – particularly with the cold weather upon us.” said Heather Rosentrater, Avista President and COO. “Our team is doing everything we can to expedite this critical work. We will keep working until every customer is restored.”
As more information comes in, Avista will update their website, Facebook and Twitter.
