By WPRO News
Gas emergency drags on
Governor Gina Raimondo declared a State of Emergency on Monday after gas service was suspended to 7,000 people in the Newport and Middletown areas on one of the coldest days of the year.
A low pressure reading forced National Grid to shut down service, leaving those thousands without heat or hot meals and flocking to hotels for warmth. As of Friday, National Grid was still working to re-pressurize lines and return gas service to affected homes, a process that could take several more days. Raimondo repeatedly urged residents to not stay in their homes without heat and to not make attempts at resolving the issue themselves.
At a mid-day news conference on Friday, Raimondo said she has ordered an investigation into the cause of the outage by the Rhode Island Department of Public Utilities and Carriers, and said she has asked federal energy regulators who regulate the pipeline to also investigate.
“We don’t know what caused this, and rest assured, we will get to the bottom of it,” she said.
“I’d love to have school open on Monday, I’d love to have the key areas in Newport back open on Monday… safely,” she told WPRO News.
“We’re not out of the woods yet, we’re absolutely not out of the woods yet.”
Raimondo has held briefings daily, and local elected officials have chimed in to direct affected residents to resources.
National Grid currently has technicians on the ground locally working to resolve the low pressure on our gas lines and restore heat to residents as soon as possible. I have been in constant contact with the City Manager and he has been providing updates as information comes in.
— Jamie Bova (@JamieBova) January 22, 2019
Am in contact with local, state and NG re: the situation and will remain so until the situation is resolved. I promise you a root cause analysis will be conducted once gas has been restored to ALL the affected customers. We need to increase the resiliency. https://t.co/Uy4syOlqcV
— Lou DiPalma (@SenLouDiPalma) January 22, 2019
https://twitter.com/DawnEuer/status/1088410718561542144
Breakfast and lunch all week at Florence Gray Center in Newport – no one should go hungry!! pic.twitter.com/SwK3jPBP38
— Deb Ruggiero (@DebRuggieroRI) January 23, 2019
Reproductive Health Care Act
Pointing to New York’s recent passage of a similar act, advocates once again are pushing for the passage of the Reproductive Health Care Act, which would codify in Rhode Island the abortion rights granted by Roe v. Wade.
Senator Gayle Goldin and others said at a Wednesday State House rally that the national political climate calls for protecting abortion rights locally.
“We’ve had a president who’s glorified sexual assault. We’ve seen him use the power of his pen to limit access to abortion every way that he can, globally and locally… We know our future in this country hangs in the balance of a few very powerful, very conservative men,” she said, also referencing the confirmations of conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Many speakers at the rally touted support for both House and Senate bills, saying they’re supported by the majority of General Assembly members and the general public, as a number of local officials ran for and won their seats on pro-choice platforms.
Staff shakeups in the governor’s office
Raimondo’s office announced Friday that Communications Director Mike Raia, who also worked on the governor’s 2018 campaign, will depart next week for an undisclosed job in the private sector. Raimondo’s Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Bogdan, a former Providence Journal reporter, will take over Raia’s post.
