More Than 1,700 Residents Of Hayward, WI Are Without Heat (Thursday).
"On one of the coldest mornings this winter... 1,700 people in Hayward, Wisconsin were forced to go without heat today.
It all started at about six this morning when a safety mechanism went off in one of the pipelines. This caused all of the gas in the pipelines to be released into the air, preventing it from going into peoples homes.
Crews rushed to the scene and found the problem was that the relief valve failed. We Energies replaced the valve and began focusing on getting the heat back on in citizen's homes.
"We lost the gas supply for the community of Hayward. We're in the process right now of turning off all the riser valves at the homes and businesses and then we can begin the process of gassing the system back up," said Mike Whitman from We Energies.
We Energies spokesman Brian Manthey says the meters have now been turned off in everyone's home. They are currently in the process of turning the gas back on, but this means they need to get into all of the more than 1,700 homes to do this.
We Energies plans to investigate why the relief valve failed. The company will also have someone at the station at all times to monitor the pipelines until the investigation is complete. We Energies needs to be able to get into all of the homes to turn each pilot light back on, but they are hoping to have everyone's heat going by midnight.
They are also advising everyone to keep a stream of water running from each faucet in the house to prevent the pipes from freezing."