POWHATAN POINT — Heavy rain again delayed efforts to cap a natural gas well on Thursday, following a Feb. 15 explosion at XTO Energy’s Schnegg well pad near Captina Creek.

“Obviously the weather has really hindered our activities today. We continue to do what we can, but flooding in the area has meant that we had to temporarily pull our crew off the pad at the request of local emergency responders,” XTO spokeswoman Karen Matusic said. “As soon as we’re able to, we’ll go back out there, but there’s a considerable amount of rain obviously falling in the area, and already roads that have been impacted by the weather anyway, and we have to bring heavy equipment in and out of that area, so it’s going to slow us up.”

Matusic said a crane damaged in the explosion remains on top of the well and must be removed before XTO can begin work to cap the leaking well. She said the experts are also making plans for the eventual capping operation.

“Until we get that crane out of the way, we won’t be able to say. Our teams working on various scenarios,” she said. “There’s a team of engineers and specialists looking at that.”

But the crews that will perform the work remain at mercy of the weather.

“This rain could continue for several days, so it’s going to put us back. We were still working on moving that crane,” she said. “This has slowed us up, but we need those roads clear.”

When the explosion occurred Feb. 15, close to 100 people were evacuated from 30 homes within a 1-mile radius of the pad. The evacuation area since has been reduced to a half-mile around the site, with the homes in the outer half-mile cleared for occupancy. On Thursday, Matusic said some evacuees had returned to their homes.

There is no timetable for clearing the inner half-mile, where four homes are located.

“Those four homes, they will be evacuated probably until we can get that well shut off,” she said. “As long as everyone’s safe, that’s the important thing, and folks that we need evacuated are in hotels or staying with family,” she said, adding that some evacuees have returned home.

“Some of the folks in Cats Run that were outside the exclusion zone have returned home. The power to some of those homes in Cats Run is back on, so they’re back. I don’t have an exact number — they were free to go home, those that were outside of the half-mile were free to go home anytime they wanted to after their homes had been cleared by air monitors. … There were some that didn’t want to go back until the well was capped, and they’re in hotels or staying with family.”

The evacuees have been housed at four hotels at Wheeling, Moundsville and St. Clairsville at XTO’s expense. Matusic added that XTO has pledged to compensate the evacuees for various expenses, including the loss of refrigerators, freezers and food during the evacuation and related power outages.

“We’ll clean any of those homes,” she added.

Any local residents who may have been impacted by this incident are encouraged to call XTO Energy’s claims phone number at 855-351-6573 or visit XTO Energy’s community response command center at the Powhatan Point Volunteer Fire Department, located at 104 Mellott St. XTO representatives and claims adjusters are on site to help meet the community’s needs.