Hundreds of Valley residents left without gas for days

Hundreds of homes in Cathedral City were left without natural gas for much of the weekend and on into part of Monday. That meant no heat and no hot water.

More than 200 residents living inside the gates of the Date Palm Country Club were effected for nearly two days after a gas leak was discovered on Saturday night.

Temperatures dipped into the thirties both Saturday and Sunday evening.

“It’s been really miserable. Very cold. You kind of learn to deal with it,” said George Mortis who has lived in the community for 24 years. “We just kind of shivered through the night.”

Mortis said at one point, the thermostat in his home read 43 degrees. His neighbor, Sara Cardella, went out and purchased an $85 heater and was forced to take a vacation day at work so she could be home to ensure the problem was fixed.

“We’re hoping that they turn the heat on soon,” she told CBS Local 2’s and KESQ News Channel 3’s Katie Widner. “The fact that SoCalGas waited so long to turn it on in a 50 and older community is upsetting.”

The SoCalGas Company said they were not entirely to blame. The leak had been fixed, but then an issue with the meter popped up. Public affairs manager Deborah McGarrey said the company was ready to make the repair on Sunday, however property managers delayed until Monday.

” SoCalGas provides the gas service to the meters, but we do not provide the gas service inside the park. All the service lines and meters are owned by the property manager, property owner actually of the park,” she said. “We had offered to make the repair last night onto the meter, we were asked if we could come back this morning.”

Mark Beukema, who identified himself as the senior regional manager for the Date Palm Country Club, did not want to go on camera and asked CBS Local 2 and KESQ News Channel 3 to leave the property. He referred us to an out-of-state contact who sent us the following statement.

Thank you for your inquiry regarding Date Palm Country Club. I am pleased to provide you the following statement for the record:

Gas service to a portion of the community was turned off by SoCal Gas on Saturday to facilitate the repair of a small leak at a home site. After SoCal Gas restored service following the repair, a service issue was discovered with the main SoCal Gas meter. SoCal Gas determined the meter required replacement, and they again turned off service. We were informed by SoCal Gas that pressure testing required to replace the SoCalGas meter could not be completed until Monday, and as a result, the SoCal Gas meter replacement project would be completed on Monday.

SoCal Gas finished replacing their meter this morning and conducted the pressure testing. Natural gas service was restored by late morning, at which point we began going door-to-door to turn on valves at each home and re-light pilot lights for residents.

We greatly appreciate the patience of our customers as we worked with SoCal Gas to restore service as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Ludovice
Director of Marketing Communication Strategy
Equity Lifestyle Properties, Inc.