Here's NOAA's temperature forecast for this winter:

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead03/off03_temp.gif

It does look warmer than typical in the central part of the US with normal temps in the Northeast.

We chose to fuel our new power plants with natural gas because gas was cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and less scary than nuclear. It was a reasonable decision then, and probably still is.

Obviously, you rate things in terms of criticality. Some businesses are more important than others, some goverenment organizations are more important than others, people should be induced to conserve.

Obviously, the power plants should be the last thing to be shut off.

But really, it's not going to get that bad.

The cutoff protocol for various local gas distribution companies will vary, depending on many factors, including whether there are high volume industrial users in the system, whether there are large numbers of interruptible tariff customers with dual fuel boilers (typically fuel oil as the alternative), but most importantly on what is necessary to maintain system pressure.  In an electric blackout, the transmission and distribution system can recover from an outage rather easily.  With gas mains, if the pressure falls below a minimum threshold then we lose gas pilots and the supply valves close.  Most equipment needs to be re-lit manually and this means a building-by-building chore that could take weeks.  If a code violation is found the gas company crews can't relight the system until the defect is repaired.  Clearly this isn't something one wants to happen in the dead of winter.  In the past decade, lots of institutional and commercial customers have opted for the interruptible tariff in order to get the lowest cost.  The risk we face this winter is that if local gas distribution companies can't get enough from the interstate pipeline suppliers and there is an unusually high number of disruption calls, then there could be an unanticipated run on heating oil stocks at a time when supply is tight for that fuel.  Since the energy value of #2 fuel oil has been declining in recent years (down to around 133,000 btu/gallon from nearly 140,000 btus in the past), natural gas even at $15/mcf is at present a better bargain than heating oil, so there will be a reluctance to order too much of the latter as a swing fuel.  Not wise this time around.

The other problem is the big 800 MW natural gas electric day peakers that purchase directly from the interstate lines.  They are not regulated by states but by FERC, and it would take a declared federal state of emergency to throttle them back.