The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1955-01-06
Oakland without
Gas For 10 Hours
As Line Freezes
Trouble Found In Hour, But
Every Meter Turned OFT
Before Service Restored

| DGtOiG OSiNt( NSSiOiGO
The town of Oakland was with
out the use of natural gas for near
! " 10 hours Sunday when a gas
! furnace to keep a regulator warm,
was drowned out by surface water
and the gas frozc in the line, cut
ting off the supply into the entire
community.
The supply was cut off about
12:l5 and even though the trouble
was discovered and corrected with
in an hour, it was necessary to
visit the home or place of business
of every user to turn off their
meters before the gas could be
turned into the lines again.
With 625 consumers in the COM
munity the job of shutting off all
the meters took several hours, ac-
cordng to Russell Brown, foreman
for the Cumberland and Allegheny
Gas company in this community.
Some fifty-five employees of the
Gas company from Cumberland,
Elkins, Kingwood, Buckhannon,
Parsons and Oakland, were on the
lob shutting off all individual gas
meters in the city as safety pre-
caution against the time when the
gas pressure would return to nor
NAL.
Brown said he first learned Of
the trouble when Mrs. Roy Shank,
of Pennington street, called to
complain that She had no gas sup
ply in her home After checking
his own stove and finding no gas
Brown rushed to the office where
he soon learned from the charts
that the trouble was in the regu-
lator about a mile south of the
town limits near the Monte Vista
road.
The regulator is used to cut the
pressure from over 200 pounds in
the main lines from gas wells in
the area to approximately 30
pounds or consumer use in the
branch lines supplying Oakland.
The gas furnace there is used to
keep the temperatures in the regu-
lator normal and it was drowned
out by surface water. Rising
temperatures following heavy
SHOWS in the area during the holt
days caused the rapidly melting
snow to flood the regulator.
Through an unusual characteristic
of natural gas which causes it to
freeze in the pipes more quickly at
outside temperatures of 35 to 40
degrees than at zero or below, the
regulator froze and automatically
shut off the supply.
Meters were again being turned
on about 6 O'Clock with the Gar
rett County Memorial hospital be-
ing the first to regain its services.
The hospital had finished its noon
meal before the trouble developed
and the gas was turned on soon
enough for the evening meal to be
prepared. Principal restaurants
were closed, and at the County jail
Sheriff Paul w. Fisher and his
deputy provided for the five
prisoners with meals cooked on an
electric hot plate. Nursing homes
and homes where there were aged
or sick people were the next to
have service restored and 80 per-
cent of the customers had service
restored by 1890 p. m. Sunday.
Company officials estimated
more than 20 percent of the COM
munity used gas for heating pur-
poses and about 95 percent for
cooking. Many homes remained
moderately heated throughout the
day because temperatures were in
the middle 4O's. But many noon
meals never did get completely
cooked until late evening.
The time consuming job of shut
ting off and turning on the indi-
vidual meters was responsible for
the long period without gas. Brown
explained also that many of the
workmen brought to Oakland were
unfamiliar with the area, did not
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