Gas workers will be relighting pilot lightsFree Access


On West Roberts Street today (Saturday, March 18), gas workers review a list of work they plan to do in Port Aransas today. The city is in the process of getting its gas system going again after an outage. (South Jetty staff photo by Lee Harrison, © 2023.)

Port Aransas City Manager David Parsons has issued more updates on the city’s natural gas outage situation today, Saturday, March 18. That includes what the city is doing to get pilot lights lit again in town.

“The boat crew was able to get out to the offshore well and service it. It is back up and operating. Current pressure at our Fish Pass regulator (the beginning of our gas system) is at 132 psi and building,” he said in a news release.

“We’re in the process of opening our system back up. We’ll start reigniting commercial and residential areas in the northern part of town first, then work south.”

In another update sent today by Parsons, he said: “Once we finish turning off all 1,500 gas services in the city, (we are close to finishing), we’ll turn on the system for the northern part of town first and starting with the restaurants, city workers will relight pilots.”

“This will take several hours,” he wrote in a text issued at 12:09 p.m.

At about 9 a.m. today he issued a statement that said restoration of gas service in Port Aransas had been estimated to take place between 2 and 3 p.m.

The city’s gas system started experiencing a widespread outage about 8 p.m. Friday, March 17.

Parsons issued a texted update Friday night about the outage.

“We contacted our supplier and were informed that our offshore gas supply wells had gone down to a mechanical sometime today and the repair vessel failed to get repair crews out due to high seas,” Parsons wrote.

“The supplier calculated that there was enough pressure in the supply lines that we’d stay in supply until tomorrow. They did not notify staff of this issue,” he wrote.

“And they were incorrect in their assumption. Our supply ran out,” he wrote.

“City staff is in the process of protecting what little pressure is left in the line. We are also attempting to hire a gas trucking company to delivery trucks early tomorrow so that we can recharge the system.”

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