Jackson businesses impacted by major gas outage

JACKSON, Mo. (KFVS) - A natural gas outage is disrupting daily operations for local businesses and residents, with crews having shut off roughly 2,000 meters as repairs continue.

Hundreds are without hot water, and local businesses that rely on gas-powered equipment have been forced to scale back or halt service entirely.

Bob Schooley owns and operates The Ground-A-bout, a coffee shop that relies on a natural gas roaster for both retail and wholesale coffee production.

“I got in a new shipment of green coffee a couple days ago, went to start the roaster yesterday and that wasn’t happening,” Schooley said.

With the outage extending into another day, Schooley said he is now weighing options to keep coffee on shelves.

“I will have to look at probably starting to source already roasted coffee somewhere else, depending on when this gets remedied,” Schooley said.

Schooley said the outage is reaching beyond business owners.

“I have a friend of mine sitting right inside here that has 100% gas appliances at his house, and he’s been taking cold showers for two days,” he said.

Down the street at The Cheesecake Ninja, owner Greg Franklin said all baking has come to a halt.

“We don’t have any ovens, so we’re unable to make our cheesecakes, the gooey butter cakes, the cookies, the cinnamon rolls, basically all the baked items,” Franklin said.

Franklin said he is exploring off-site options to keep shelves stocked.

“We’re talking to some other restaurants and seeing if we can possibly use their ovens whenever they have electric options or off-site kitchens to make our cheesecakes to bring up our stock a little bit,” he said.

Jackson resident Andy Holm said he is concerned about what the outage means for local businesses.

“I can sympathize with the restaurants right now as far as look like their business is being hurt for sure,” Holm said.

Holm, who said he has not been personally affected by the outage, said he hopes service is restored quickly.

“I hope they get it back up soon so those that are affected — I’m blessed I’m not affected — but I hope they get it moving, back up again so that those that are affected get back to a normal life,” he said.

According to Liberty Utilities, full-service restoration could take about a week.