About 20,000 PG&E customers in Sonoma County still have no natural gas service

More than 20,000 PG&E natural gas customers in Sonoma County Friday at lunchtime still have no service.

On Saturday, the utility turned off the gas to about 24,600 county customers because of the Kincade fire.

About 4,400 residences and businesses have gas again, the majority of which are in Cloverdale and parts of Geyserville, Graton and Forestville, said PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras.

The complex restoration process requires going door-to-door to homes and businesses, and crews were in Windsor Friday, lighting pilot lights to get gas flowing to thousands of residents, she said. Crews were scheduled to be in Healdsburg Saturday to do the same, although PG&E does not anticipate reaching every customer until Monday afternoon.

Utility workers were unable to contact about 1,000 customers without gas service, something that needs to be done before restoration can occur, Contreras said. If the first attempt to make contact is unsuccessful, customers will have to schedule an appointment, she said.

Meanwhile, PG&E crews were hoping by Friday afternoon to restore some 326 customers still without power from the planned outages this week.

Those customers live along the Bodega Highway corridor and include residents in Freestone out toward Occidental and Valley Ford, as well as in the area of Fitch Mountain near Healdsburg and up the coast in Fort Ross, Contreras said.

Another 1,400 customers still were without power due to being in or near the fire zone, she said.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

Staff Writer Will Schmitt contributed to this report. You can reach Staff Writer Randi Rossmann at 707-521-5412 or randi.rossmann@pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Writer Yousef Baig at 707-521-5390 or yousef.baig@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @YousefBaig.