Natural gas outage impacts 400, closes 2 schools for a day
SABINE PARISH, LA (KSLA) - There will be no classes Wednesday at two Sabine Parish schools, School District official says.
"Due to gas line issues Converse High School and Pleasant Hill High School will be closed tomorrow, January 31st," says a statement from the Sabine schools superintendent's office.
The temporary closure of the two campuses is due to a natural gas outage.
The outage is along Louisiana Highway 174 in the areas of Converse and Pleasant Hill, parish spokesman Joe Dewil said.
That includes the communities of Oak Grove and Mitchell about four to five miles east of Converse.
About 400 customers are impacted by the outage, said Ann Hayward, spokeswoman for Atmos Energy.
The Dallas-based company is the distributor for the impacted pipeline.
The natural gas supplier, or transmission company, is Enlink Midstream.
The problem is on Enlink's end, Hayward said.
"We do have a leak on a low-pressure, six-inch pipeline," Enlink Midstream spokeswoman Jill McMillan said.
"We have located and isolated the link and are working diligently to repair it."
Meantime, McMillan said, Atmos Energy is working on an interim solution to getting service restored.
"As soon as Enlink determines the reason for the outage, we will work to ensure service is restored to our customers," Atmos Energy's Hayward said.
About 19 miles of pipeline will have to be inspected and, as necessary, repaired before service can be restored, Dewil said.
Parish officials have been given no estimate of how long that will take.
Nor could the company spokeswomen give a definitive timeline.
Atmos Energy has 3 million natural gas distribution customers in more than 1,400 communities in eight states from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West, according to the company's website.
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