UPDATE: 5:44 p.m. - Wagon Wheel Pizza owner Keith Elwood told us that as of 5:40 p.m. Saturday, gas service had been restored to his business. We've received no further updates from Florida Gas Company on the repairs.
More than 1,000 people in the Palm Bay area are affected after construction crews damaged a natural gas line.
- Florida City Gas reported that a 4-inch national gas pipeline was damaged
- Company stated that workers will work through weekend to fix gas line
- One local pizza parlor has lost thousands of dollars because there is no gas
News 13 spoke with frustrated business owners who have now been closed for much of the weekend because of the damage.
“My manager gave me a call and said 'We are out of gas, the ovens are shut down and we have no gas,'” Wagon Wheel Pizza owner Keith Elwood said. But by late Saturday, the business started to get some gas again.
That happened at 3:30 p.m., Friday afternoon. The restaurant has been closed since, and has had to turn away customer after customer.
“Friday night is the busiest night of the week. We lost thousands of dollars worth of business because we weren’t able to open,” Elwood said.
Florida City Gas reported a 4-inch natural gas steel pipeline was damaged by construction crews sometime on Friday, but businesses didn’t think it would still be affecting them.
The Wagon Wheel Pizza isn’t the only one affected. In fact, more than 1,000 customers have been affected, and Elwood said he spoke with dozens of businesses along Palm Bay Road that are currently closed.
According to Florida City Gas, workers are working to resolve the issue and restore gas to customers in South Melbourne and North Palm Bay.
For Elwood, that can’t come soon enough.
“I’m hoping that it gets done as soon as possible, but I did just hear from one of my servers that just came by that it might not be until Monday, which could be detrimental to some of these small businesses,” Elwood said.
Florida City Gas stated they expect to work through the weekend to fix the gas line.