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Over 150 Princeton residents without heat due to natural gas 'interruption'

Published  January 30, 2019 7:26pm CST
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FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

PRINCETON, Minn. (FOX 9) - More than 150 customers in Baldwin Township, Minnesota, just outside of Princeton, are without heat after the extreme weather conditions caused an “interruption” in their natural gas service. 

Xcel Energy said the interruption occurred at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night. Due to the pressure the weather is placing on the system to heat homes, Xcel Energy said it had to pinch off the gas supply to about 150 customers to keep everyone else in the area online. 

"We had an area of the system that was constrained," Xcel community relations manager Mark Osendorf said. "We lost pressure. We had to isolate the outage to minimize the impact on a larger number of customers." 

Gas is not expected to be restored until at least Thursday. 

Xcel is providing hotel rooms for customers affected by the outage. A command center has been set up at the AmericInn in Princeton and Xcel representatives will be on site to help with accommodations and to provide information about when service will be restored. 

The company has booked rooms at the following hotels: 

  • AmericanInn, 910 Run River Road, Princeton (34) 1-763-389-9312
  • CountyInn, 18894 Dodge Street Northwest, Elk River (28) 1-763-241-6990
  • Super 8, 21130 134th Ave N, Rodgers (25) 1-763-333-0253
  • America Best Value, 16776 198th Ave, Big Lake, MN (17) 1-763-262-7666
  • Best Western, 89 Chelsea Rd, Monticello, MN (20) 1-763-271-8880
  • Run River Motel, 510 19th Ave N, Princeton, MN (11) 1-763-389-3120

The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office said Xcel is also giving out heaters to affected customers, which can be picked up at the command center at the AmericInn in Princeton.

To prevent additional natural gas outages, Xcel is asking all customers in Princeton, as well as Becker, Big Lake, Chisago County, Isanti and Lindstrom to turn their thermostat to 60 degrees or lower and reduce their use of natural gas appliances, including hot water, until further notice.  

“Any further strain on the system could cause cascading service disruptions throughout the county,”
Sherburne County Sheriff Joel Brott said in a statement. “We need Sherburne County residents to conserve their natural gas use to help
protect each other and get normal gas service restored as quickly as possible.”

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