Gas Mishap Leads To Cold Christmas In Town

By MARK EVANS

mevans@stegenherald.com

Numerous Ste. Genevieve residents awoke to chilly homes on Christmas morning.

An apparent mishap involving a contractor doing work for Spire, Inc., led to natural gas customers in the city being without gas the night before Christmas and Christmas morning.

Steve Shuh owner of Shuh & Sons Plumbing and Heating, posted about the issue on Facebook, Christmas afternoon.

“The entire town of Ste. Genevieve is having issues with the natural gas supply. We have so many calls to return and voice mails to listen to, I don’t know if we will get to all of them today,” he said. “Spire has is working hard to figure out the issue an restore service.”

City administrator Happy Welch said Sunday that he had been told, “One of Spire’s contractors was working on the line and it caused an issue.”

A Spire representative told the Herald Monday morning someone would call back who could answer questions, such as how many customers were affected, and for how long, and who could confirm the exact cause of the problem. No call had been received by the time the Herald went to press Monday evening.

Spire, which bought our Missouri Natural Gas (officially known as Missouri Gas Energy) in 2013, serves approximately 631,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the city of St. Louis and 10 counties in eastern Missouri. Its corporate headquarters is located in St. Louis.

The problem was resolved later Friday morning. According to Facebook posts, Spire sent crews from St. Louis to assist in restoring service.