Supe Criticizes Slow Gas Restoration In North, West Sonoma County

SANTA ROSA, CA — Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins criticized PG&E on Facebook Thursday morning for its "zero progress" on re-lighting pilots and restoring natural gas service to residents returning to her west Sonoma County district after evacuation orders and warnings from the Kincade Fire were lifted.

Hopkins said about half of Cloverdale plus Healdsburg, Geyserville, Forestville, Graton and areas west of Sebastopol were still without gas.

"Conflicting information is unacceptable. We will continue to get to the bottom of this," Hopkins said in a Facebook post at 7 a.m.

In a Facebook post at 10:15 a.m., Hopkins said an update PG&E gave at a special Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday morning indicated 23,000 customers in the county were still without natural gas.

"They claim to have completed re-lighting Cloverdale yesterday. For Forestville and Graton, they have completed the re-pressurization and inspection. There was some damage to the system; some of the valves were old and they had to replace them," Hopkins said.

"PG&E plans to re-light (visit customers' homes, turn on the natural gas and relight all the pilot lights) TODAY. PG&E says they have about 200 folks out in Forestville and Graton to relight," Hopkins said.

Hopkins said other areas that will have valves turned off, tested and re-pressured include the Wikiup area and Windsor/Healdsburg, which includes 8,000 customers. PG&E hopes to get through those Thursday in terms of re-pressurization, and to begin relighting those areas Friday, Hopkins said.

In response to Hopkins' Facebook posts, PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said 24,600 natural gas customers had their gas service proactively shut off, and PG&E's Community Resource Centers in Cloverdale and Santa Rosa will remain open. PG&E also is working to establish a resource center in the Healdsburg area, Contreras said.

As of Wednesday, gas service was restored to approximately 2,350 customers in the Cloverdale area, Contreras said. PG&E crews were unable to gain access to restore gas service to approximately 1,200 gas customers in the Cloverdale area, but crews left door hangers on those locations and asked customers to contact the number provided.

"We will be in the area where we turned off gas today, tomorrow and throughout the weekend working to restore gas. Those areas include Graton, Forestville, Geyserville, Windsor and Larkfield-Wikiup," Contreras said.

— Bay City News Service