Anyone who was complaining about a lack of winter likely hasshut up by now, and for good reason. Right on top of the first one,the eastern United States last week was bracing for its second coldsnap of the year.

Atlanta Gas Light Friday said demand for gas in Georgia hit aseasonal high last week with AGL moving 18.7 million therms lastWednesday night. That’s the highest amount so far since winterbegan. The demand surge forced AGL to draw from LNG reserves atthree plants.

“The last time we had this much gas moving through the systemwas Jan. 4, 1999,” said AGL director of gas operations BradFreeman. Wednesday’s volume was the third largest in companyhistory. The largest amount of gas moved through the AGL system wason Feb. 4, 1996 when more than 20 million therms of gas were used.High demand last week forced some industrials to cut back on theirusage.

Some Georgians were sucking on the gas pipe in the dark. LastFriday morning scattered power outages remained in north Georgiadue to one of the state’s worst ice storms in recent history,reported Georgia Transmission Corp. The news came when a new stormwas expected to drop snow, sleet and freezing rain across largeportions of the state. Georgia Transmission again activated itsDisaster Response Center to prepare for outages. “This is the firsttime I can remember activating a second response plan beforedeactivating the previous one,” said disaster response directorGeorge Blomeley.

Electric consumers in North Carolina weren’t spared either,according to Carolina Power & Light. As of 11 a.m. Friday,thousands still were without power. CP&L said it hoped to haveeveryone back on line by late Friday. At the same time, the utilitywas telling customers an approaching storm could bring significantice accumulations and would likely cause additional outages overthe weekend.

In Tennessee, AGL subsidiary Chattanooga Gas Co. said demand inthe eastern part of the state hit a seasonal high. The LDC said itmoved 1.25 million therms last Wednesday night ad 1.19 milliontherms Tuesday night, the highest amounts this winter. As on theAGL system, some industrials had to cut back.

In Philadelphia, Peco Energy was telling electric and gascustomers to cut back and conserve. Apparently, every little bithelps. Peco advised waterbed owners to make their beds to keep theheat in. An unmade waterbed “can be more expensive to heat and usemore energy than a refrigerator or water heater.”

Virginians might have wanted to crawl into their beds and hideFriday in anticipation of heavy weekend weather predicted byVirginia Power. “Our company meteorologists predict the storm willenter our service area Sunday morning,” the utility said Friday.”We’re operating under the expectation that we’ll have an icingevent on Sunday.” The utility hit a preliminary Friday peak of15,100 megawatts. The all-time peak demand is 16,216 megawatts, setJuly 6 last year.

Among the slew of cities and towns with severe weather alertsFriday were Thunder Ridge, NY; Wintergreen, VA; and Jack Frost, PA.

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