Gas supply shut off

Photo: CTV

Natural gas is starting to run out for some in Vancouver.

A 605-unit apartment complex is without heat or hot water, and utility provider FortisBC has reportedly ordered 200 industrial customers in Vancouver to shut off their gas.

The shortage is fallout from a pipeline explosion near Prince George Tuesday evening.

"Effective immediately, you are being curtailed to zero," FortisBC said in a letter to management at the Langara Gardens apartments on Wednesday, leaving more than 1,000 residents in the cold.

"You don't get any heat – that's it – or hot water," resident Fin Russell told CTV.

"We had curtailed service or shut off service to a lot of industrial customers, so they come off first," FortisBC spokesperson Doug Stout confirmed. "We keep homes and small business on the longest if we have outages."

"We had gas flowing into two large pipelines that were operating at full capacity before the rupture," Stout said. "We're going to be at less than half of that volume, so obviously there's still a shortage of gas to go around."

Every customer in B.C. has been asked to cut back on their usage.

– with files from CTV Vancouver