City of New Albany OH : New Albany Columbia Gas Outage Update – as of 3:45 PM on January 5, 2016

Service Restoration to Impacted Customers is Underway

Natural gas service was interrupted this morning to approximately 1,100 Columbia Gas of Ohio customers in the Hampsted Village, Main Street and Market Street areas of the New Albany area. The area is safe and Columbia Gas crews are now restoring service to impacted customers.

While the cause of the outage remains under investigation, preliminary indication is the outage was likely caused by an issue involving the delivery of natural gas into Columbia Gas of Ohio's system. Our system is operating the way we expect it to and our priority is restoring service to our customers.

Restoration of service requires Columbia Gas crews to access impacted customers' homes to complete a safety inspection and relight appliances. This could take approximately 30 minutes per home. Impacted customers need to be advised of the following:

• By law and for safety reasons, only Columbia Gas employees and contractors are capable of restoring service.
• An adult must be present at the home to allow Columbia Gas workers to restore service.
• Impacted customers are advised to keep their porch light on.
• If impacted customers are planning to leave their homes, Columbia Gas asks that contact or access information be left with a neighbor or on the customer's door so that our crews can gain access to the home to reestablish service.
• Columbia Gas employees and contractors carry photo IDs and will be happy to show them on request.

Columbia Gas crews from other locations around the state are arriving in New Albany to assist with the restoration of service. Columbia Gas employees will work non-stop to restore service and relight appliances in homes and businesses.

Customers that have special needs or medical concerns should contact Columbia Gas at 1-800-344-4077. Customers worried about frozen pipes are advised to keep cold water dripping from any faucet in the home. Even a trickle helps prevent pipes from freezing.

Updates will be available throughout the day on the Columbia Gas web site at ColumbiaGasOhio.com and via Twitter @columbiagasohio.