Glassport residents dealing with intermittent gas service after pipe freezes

After the major winter storm and record low temperatures, a homeowner in Glassport said her gas service has failed repeatedly, leaving her and her neighbors without reliable heat.

Delaware Avenue in Glassport is shut down and ripped apart as crews try to fix a gas line that has frozen four times in two weeks — all during a stretch of extreme cold following the major winter storm.

"It's not OK to live like this," homeowner Melissa Borrelli said. 

Homeowners on Delaware Avenue, like Borrelli, said the repeated gas shutoffs have made daily life unpredictable — never knowing if they'll wake up to a warm house or if their heat will suddenly stop working.

On Monday, Peoples Gas crews returned once again, bringing in heavy machinery and tearing into Delaware Avenue to permanently fix the frozen line.

"They're here every two to three days, and today is the fourth time they came to my house," Borrelli said on Monday. 

The uncertainty has forced Borrelli and several of her neighbors in the 900 block of Delaware Avenue to bundle up inside their homes. They are relying on layers and space heaters to get through the day.

A spokesperson for Peoples Gas said in a statement that it experienced a water intrusion into gas pipelines in the area several weeks ago, which caused the lines to freeze as the temperatures dropped. The company added that crews have been working to remove that water to reduce the possibility of this happening again.

For Borrelli, the repeated outages are more than a major headache. She says she's on disability because of an autoimmune disease and worries how the cold is impacting her health, especially when her furnace suddenly shuts off overnight. She also worries about her neighbors, several of whom are elderly.

"It's just annoying, and it's an aggravation that we don't want to have to deal with," Borrelli said. 

Other homeowners on the street said they're now worried their electric bills will skyrocket because they've been using space heaters to heat their homes.