The natural gas outage that left more than 2,300 Black Hills Energy natural gas customers' homes and businesses shivering last week was the result of significant high demands across the nation due to unprecedented cold weather, according to Black Hills officials.
The loss of pressure that occurred on the system serving Pea Ridge was directly related to the increased demand. Service was safely restored to most of the affected customers by early afternoon on Feb. 18, according to a press release from Black Hills.
Black Hills Energy technicians began monitoring the Pea Ridge transmission border station at 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 16, when natural gas transmission lines began to experience low pressure in other parts of the country affected by the storms. Technicians were staged in numerous locations across portions of the Black Hills system throughout the weather event to monitor pressures.
City residents began reporting having no gas around 10 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16.
Additional Black Hills technicians were called in from Arkansas, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska to aid in the work. Technicians went door to door turning off meters so lines could be purged and tested. Technicians then went door to door turning on meters and lighting pilot lights.
"We would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who assisted us in this effort," Chad Kinsley, vice president of opeartions for Black Hills Energy Arkansas, said. "The City of Pea Ridge and the technicians who traveled to lend a hand, and our customers and community who extended us their patience and support through this process."
City and school officials worked together to provide a "warming station" for Pea Ridge residents in the Middle School and many businesses donated supplies.
Mayor Jackie Crabtree and city officials began working with school officials to provide the "warming station" as soon as they were aware of the problem. Black Hills provided a trailer to supply gas to heat the gym at the Middle School. No one used the shelter and donated supplies were distributed to families in need.
Police and Fire Department personnel spent Tuesday night in the shelter to provide assistance. Tuesday night, Mayor Jackie Crabtree provided a list of hotels in Bentonville that offered reduced rates for persons without heat in their homes.
"We actually had people calling to offer to pay for a hotel room for people who didn't want to spend the night on a basketball court," Lisenbee said.
Food and supplies for as many as 500 people were donated for use in the warming station at Pea Ridge Middle School Tuesday evening. There were bottles of water, blankets, tissue, as well as the food.
"It's really important to us that the food that was donated by Sheep Dog, Walmart, First Baptist Church of Pea Ridge is actually going to people who are in need," he said.
"The shelter will remain open and heated until city officials receive confirmation that everyone's heat has been restored," Police Lt. Michael Lisenbee said Wednesday, adding that some natural gas customers may not be home during the day and may not have their service restored.
"We learned that a lot of the heat is getting restored," Lisenbee said Wednesday morning. "If heat's getting restored, nobody's going to come here so we shifted our priorities -- we've got all this food and all this water; some of the food is perishable -- bananas and oranges," Lisenbee said. "We decided to make packages up and we're going to get them to families the school district knows are in need. We're going to take to 24 families."
Several area residents said they used electric heaters, but many said the couldn't find electric heaters in the stores.
Tom Sheets, with the Pea Ridge Street Department, said it got about 59 degrees inside his house without the natural gas heat.
One resident, Shelby Bennett, said: "We first went to a friend's house that was all electric when we thought it was just going to be a few hours. When we found out it was going to take much longer we had to leave to go to Bentonville to get a hotel room. We didn't want to take chances with our 7-month-old. The real struggle is trying to work from home and deal with all this mess. Now we are out of town so to speak and have no idea when the gas will be turned back on or if we can even make it back because of the snow that happened overnight."
Several city residents expressed concern for water pipes.
Melanie Kelly said: "We've been snuggled in layers of clothes and blankets but the biggest trials have been finding ways to keep pipes from busting."
In 2020, Black Hills Energy filed for, and received, state approval to upgrade a portion of the natural gas system serving the Pea Ridge area. These upgrades will support the natural gas needs of current residents during extreme low temperatures and also provide additional capacity for the continued growth of that region, according to a press release from Black Hills.
"We forecasted that additional capacity would be needed to meet the future natural gas needs of the growing Pea Ridge area," said Chad Kinsley, vice president of gas operations for Black Hills Energy in Arkansas. "What we could not forecast was the unprecedented extreme and prolonged cold weather experienced this week."
Work on the previously scheduled project to increase system capacity in Pea Ridge will begin this spring.
