More than 50 natural gas customers in Gantt were temporarily without service beginning at about 1:30 a.m. today, but a spokeswoman for Southeast Alabama Gas District said service will be restored to each customer as soon as possible.

Shannon Jackson of SEAGD said a regulator malfunctioned early this morning. The regulator controls the flow of natural gas in the lines.

The regulator set has been prepared and service is available in Gantt. However, she said, as a precaution, SEAGD has manually turned off natural gas at each of the homes and businesses served there to make sure than any type of seepage goes away.

“Our main goal was to ensure that everyone is safe,” she said.

Crews are now going door-to-door to inspect individual meters and restore the service, she said. However, the company’s preference is to make contact face-to-face or by phone before restoring natural gas service at homes.

If no one is at home, she said, a door hangar will be left instructing the resident to call SEAGD to have service restored.

“If no one is at home, we’ll come back out and turn the gas on,” she said. “There are no fees for this, because this was caused by a problem on our side.”

Jackson expressed SEAGD’s appreciation to emergency crews who responded as a precaution this morning, but said that no gas leak occurred.

“We want to thank our customers for being incredibly patient and let them know we’re in the process of getting services turned back on,” she said. “If you see a lot of activity there, that’s not a reason for alarm.”