Engineers from Northern Gas Networks continue to do all that they can to restore supply to properties in the town of Withernsea, East Yorkshire.
Investigations are underway to establish the cause of the incident, which occurred at around 6pm on Saturday and has resulted in the loss of supply to the town.
Around 3,000 properties have been affected.
Northern Gas Networks Chief Executive Officer, Mark Horsley, is in Withernsea today. He said: “The main governor feeding Withernsea shut itself off around 6pm on Saturday.
“We think it was due to the adverse weather and water getting into the gas system and so the actual equipment was doing the right thing and made the whole network very safe.
“What we are currently doing is investigating the cause of that before we can even think about turning the gas back on and so we are in that planning process at the moment.
“It is important that customers do turn off their gas at the gas mains. We will be dropping a note through every customer’s door, instructing them on what actions to take when we do switch the gas back on. Hopefully, it is going to be today, but I really can’t make any promises at the moment, until we have investigated further.
“We have established an incident centre and anybody who has neighbours with any issues of vulnerability please come round to the centre.
“We are giving out heaters, but we need to be careful as if we give heaters to everyone we may have problems on the electricity network.
“Northern Powergrid are supporting us extremely well at the moment to manage this situation as well.
“Our teams have been working through the night, all my board of directors are out here as well and we really are concerned to get this back on as quickly as we can.”
Northern Gas Networks is working together with East Riding of Yorkshire Council and other agencies to support customers during this time with heating, cooking, food and shower facilities.
A mobile catering unit is on route and will be based at the incident centre in the sports hall on Hull Road.
As well as the incident centre, residents are able to go along to East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s leisure centre in the town to keep warm and receive hot drinks.
It will remain open longer than usual tonight, with people able to stay until 9pm. It will re-open earlier than usual tomorrow, from 6am, to again operate a drop-in centre.
East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Withernsea Centre in Queen Street has also been opened today to offer support to local residents.
Anyone with any questions or concerns is being asked to speak to an engineer on site, drop into the sports hall or contact NGN’s Customer Care team on 0800 040 7766.
Anyone who smells gas should call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999.
Read the letter to customers here: Self Isolation Letter_Withernsea
