Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

By Kate Bramson
Journal staff writer

TIVERTON -- Famous Pizza owner Vaselios Skarpos spent most of yesterday waiting to get his business back up and running.

In the end, all he made were a few cold grinders, because his ovens, stove, heat and hot water all run on gas. And gas was in short supply in the northern section of town, after a distribution problem caused a dramatic drop in pressure.

At 3:30 this morning, Skarpos met National Grid workers at the pizza shop on 433 Main Road that he's owned for 35 years.

Seven hours later, he was back in the swing of business, when the phone rang.

His employee covered the mouthpiece and asked, "Can we do 30 pizzas at noon for National Grid?"

The utility had had many workers on the job all night, working to restore service, as freezing temperatures hit the region.

Skarpos replied, of course, "We'll do our best."

Shortly before noon, a delivery crew showed up with the pizzas at a temporary command center at the fire station at 85 Main Road.

By that time, the number of customers in town without gas service was down to between 300 and 350, from a height of 826 yesterday.

National Grid, which provides the gas, worked through the night to get in and out of affected homes and businesses, first shutting off, the turning gas back on.

Their white trucks were visible around town this morning, as they continued on the task.

But restoration was complicated by the fact that some customers were at work, and the utilitiy was unable to get into houses to put the gas back on.

National Grid spokesman David Graves said about 50 workers were at that task now, and that about 80 would be on the job around 4 p.m., when people began returning home.

 Tags  National Grid Tiverton

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