One of the region’s largest manufacturers temporarily suspended “certain” operations in Lewiston after a disruption in natural gas service to the region.

“We are focused on the safety of our employees and maintaining our assets while we wait for repairs on the gas pipeline to be completed,” said Clearwater Paper President and CEO Arsen Kitch in a news release issued Thursday afternoon. “We expect to resume the impacted operations in the coming days.”

Exactly when the suspension happened or what parts of Clearwater Paper were affected were not specified in the news release.

Lewiston is the home of Clearwater Paper’s biggest manufacturing complex, which makes pulp, tissue and paperboard. The company is one of Lewiston’s largest employers.

The tissue is for private brand toilet paper, paper towels, paper napkins and facial tissue. The paperboard is for packaging and paper dishware.

Another manufacturer, CCI-Speer, which produces ammunition in Lewiston, was also dealing with the outage. “The natural gas outage is affecting everyone, including CCI-Speer,” said Eric Smith, a spokesperson for Vista Outdoor, the parent company of CCI-Speer, in a text.

Smith declined to elaborate.

Operations at the region’s biggest private employer, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, were running normally.

“Thanks to the dedication and resilience of our employee-owners, SEL operations have continued without significant disruption in Moscow, Lewiston and Pullman,” said Frank Harrill, vice president of security, in an email. “We remain engaged with our partners at Avista Utilities as we support recovery efforts across the Palouse.”

How other kinds of businesses were doing varied. Restaurants were among those hardest hit because of health code rules that require them to have hot water for employees and diners for handwashing, said Bill Jollymore, owner of Jollymore’s: A Dining Experience in Lewiston.

His restaurant was among those that closed Wednesday right before the dinner rush because it couldn’t heat water. He had to cancel about 100 lunch and dinner reservations just for Thursday and was worried about how long he would have to wait before natural gas service was restored.

Every day the restaurant is closed makes it harder for its employees to pay for housing and other necessities, he said.

“It’s a huge economic impact for our community,” Jollymore said.

Happy Day Corp. kept all of its 13 locations open other than A&W in Moscow, which was scheduled to reopen today with a mobile kitchen, said Tobe Finch, president of Happy Day Corp.

Finch’s company includes Main Street Grill, Mystic Cafe, Southway Pizzeria, Tomato Bros, and Zany Graze, all in Lewiston, as well as four Arby’s, an A&W and three Taco Times in the region.

The restaurants offered as many menu items as possible with the power that was available and heated water on site for handwashing stations, Finch said.

The dining area at IMUA Hawaiian Style Restaurant in downtown Lewiston was busy. Among the customers were Stephanie Adelsbach, of Clarkston. She was there with her grandkids, who didn’t have school, and her adult daughter, Danae Olson of Clarkston.

Adelsbach and Olson don’t typically get to have lunch together during the week, but their employers were both closed Thursday because of the gas outage. Adelsbach is a parent coordinator at Parkway Elementary in Clarkston and Olson works in the pet grooming department of Petco, where the other parts of the retailer were open.

In spite of the disruptions in their schedule, the women said they were doing well.

The only sacrifice Adelsbach said she was making was going without heat. and even that was mitigated by a space heater.

“It would have been worse if we didn’t have electricity because then nothing would be working,” Adelsbach said.

A few blocks away, The Blue Lantern Coffee House didn’t have to make any adjustments, said Dawn Abbott, the owner.

Her water heater and appliances run on electricity, she said.

“All of our equipment produces a lot of warm air, so we’re doing fine,” Abbott said.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.