"Extremely rare," but Shorewood residents frustrated by series of gas service interruptions



SHOREWOOD -- There is growing frustration in Shorewood over gas service interruptions.

After a couple of weeks of confusion, Ken Kapp is concerned.

On Tuesday, December 15th, the Shorewood man, who lives near the intersection of Edgewood and Downer, is a block away from where We Energies crews responded to another residential gas service interruption resulting from a contractor striking a main.

"It's not a very comfortable feeling," said Kapp.

Shorewood gas leak



But it is getting familiar for some folks in this neighborhood. Monday's situation marked the fourth service interruption in the past two weeks -- and the third in just the last five days.

"This is extremely rare -- to have that number of incidents in that short of a time frame," said Cathy Schulze from We Energies.

Schulze explains all four stem from the same project -- which does not involve We Energies. She says two incidents, including Monday's, and one which took place near Cramer and Beverly on December 10th, involved contractor crews striking gas mains. Two others involved service line strikes.

"In some of the situations, we did have markings that were inaccurate -- and in some instances, we did have records that were inaccurate," said Schulze.

Gas line struck in Shorewood



Schulze attributes this to old piping, which can be difficult to detect -- as well as outdated pipe locator maps.

"Some of the points that were used to make those measurements may have shifted. So it gets challenging to, perhaps, interpret some of those maps," said Schulze.

Shorewood gas leak