HASTINGS, Mich. — After a gas leak in Barry County left thousands of people without access to natural gas, crews have got things mostly back to normal.
On Monday, Consumers Energy said crews have reconnected gas lines for most of the 4,500 people who lost power after a gas leak was detected five , in a steel pipe beneath the Thornapple River.
A Consumers spokesperson said the gas leak was fixed “very quickly” but credits the work of crews for going door-to-door and disconnecting gas lines one home at a time.
In total, she estimates about 4300 people in the areas of Hastings and Nashville were without gas over the weekend.
READ: Thousands of customers impacted after natural gas leak
“Much of our work this past weekend was going to individual customer homes and businesses and getting the pilot lights relit,” said Tracy Wimmer, spokesperson for Consumers Energy.
Wimmer said, as of Sunday night, crews had contacted every impacted customer.
Over the weekend, crews knocked on doors and relit pilot lights, and for those who weren’t home when crews showed up, notices were left with information about how to reschedule.
Wimmer also thanks the Barry County residents for their positivity in an inconvenient situation. “The sentiment was positive and understanding, you know, obviously, the not having guests for five days, or having issues like that over the holiday weekend are deeply frustrating, and we completely understand that.”
However, Consumers is still working to learn the exact cause of the gas leak.
On Friday, crews said the usual causes of a gas leak are not suspected in the Barry County episode.
READ: Crews continue efforts to restore natural gas after a leak
"Typically, most often when you see a gas leak, it's because someone or something has struck a gas line, like a piece of equipment doing work. We don't know the circumstances here. There's no indication that that happened," Brian Wheeler, another spokesperson for Consumers Energy, said on Friday.
As of Monday, Wimmer said Consumers is committed to looking into the cause, addressing the problem, and working to keep a situation like this from happening again.
