Columbia Gas of Virginia reported late Thursday it had restored natural gas service to 84% of the nearly 4,000 customers in a Virginia suburb who were affected earlier this week when a delivery station near Dulles Airport lost pressure, forcing utility workers to go from home to home to shut off meters to prevent gas from leaking or other potential mishaps until pressure returned.

Columbia spokesman Bob Innes said 3,753 gas customers in part of Herndon, VA, and other areas in Fairfax County lost service when linepack at the station, which delivers gas to its distribution facilities, dropped unexpectedly Wednesday. He estimated service had been restored to 3,153 customers by Thursday, but he noted 600 were still without service because customers weren’t home. “As soon as these customers call us, we will send out dispatchers to get the gas on.” Herndon is located about 20 miles west of Washington, DC.

“We’re still investigating the root cause” of the pressure drop, Innes told NGI. He noted normal delivery at the station is 250 Mcf/hour, but he would not say to what level that fell on Wednesday. The delivery station is served by only one pipeline — affiliated Columbia Gas Transmission.

The outage couldn’t have come at a worse time, with temperatures below the freezing level and the entire state of Virginia being blanketed by snow. A shelter was opened at Herndon High School for affected families, and the Red Cross “brought cots, blankets and supplies,” Innes said, adding that a “few families took advantage of this.”

At the same time, Columbia Gas mobilized employees from Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Maryland and other parts of Virginia to help shut off service until pressure was up, and then restore it, he noted. Washington Gas Light provided some workers as well. These employees “worked around the clock last night” to turn on the meters at customers’ homes.

Columbia Gas of Virginia, which is one of 10 local distribution companies owned by NiSource Co., serves more than 200,000 customers in 89 communities throughout Virginia.

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