SANTA FE - Utility executives said Monday they had to cut natural-gas service to a dozen towns during last week's bitter cold or risk a catastrophic "crash" of the entire delivery system.

Members of New Mexico Gas Co.'s management team appeared before a legislative committee as thousands of their customers remained without heat or hot water.

Tommy Sanders, director of supplies for the company, said he anticipated last week's bone-chilling weather and bought more natural gas to meet demand from homeowners and businesses. But the unusually cold weather also spiked electricity usage in west Texas, and that in turn weakened natural-gas pipeline flow in New Mexico, he said.

Both states are on the same power grid. Ken Oostman, the gas company's director of technical services, said shutting down the most distant parts of the natural-gas delivery system had to be done to avert a statewide crisis.

Line pressure fell to such a low level that "we were fearful that we would lose the entire system," he told legislators.

Most places where service was cut, including Alamogordo and Silver City, had natural gas again by the weekend.

By the company's count, though, nearly 16,000 customers still were without service Monday. Most were in Taos and Espa-ola.

Gov. Susana Martinez assigned another 300 National Guard soldiers and airmen to alert townspeople that utility workers were coming in to relight furnaces and water heaters.

Martinez over the weekend had assigned 50 soldiers

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to help. Her chief of staff said the gas company resisted the offer of additional guardsmen because it thought they would be "more a hindrance than a help."

Tom Domme, vice president and general counsel of the gas company, said more than 700 other workers were in the field, clearing lines and then going door to door to relight appliances.

Domme and his colleagues spent three hours before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee, trying to explain what went wrong and how his company was making it right before another storm arrived.

He said about 30,000 people were without natural-gas service when the temperatures plunged on Thursday. Domme, in response to a question from Democratic Rep. Al Park of Albuquerque, said he hoped no more than 5,000 people would be without heat Monday night.

Then he added, "I can't guarantee anything."

The committee hearing took on a partisan tone, as Democrats interrogated company executives and Republicans treated them sympathetically.

One Democrat, Rep. Debbie Rodella of Espa-ola, questioned New Mexico Gas Co.'s diligence.

"On the fifth day we're purging lines," she said. "It doesn't make sense to me."

Rodella also said the public blamed the gas utility and nobody else.

"Right now there's no confidence in your company," she told Domme.

Company executives conceded they were slow to notify the state and federal governments about delivery problems, not doing so until Thursday morning. But otherwise, they said, they were proactive and practical, cutting service to far-flung parts of their system to prevent disaster everywhere.

Republicans on the committee said the company had performed well under impossible circumstances.

Rep. James Strickler, R-Farmington, said last week's weather was the coldest in New Mexico in 40 years. Strickler, who is in the petroleum business, said the bad weather and blackouts in Texas created "a domino effect" that the gas company could not control.

Fellow Republicans sounded similar themes.

Rep. Dennis Kintigh of Roswell said those without service were not "victims of a nefarious plot." Rather, he said, the laws of physics and nature had created a problem that the company did its best to solve.

Rep. Miguel Garcia, D-Albuquerque, asked no questions but called for a follow-up hearing on what can be done to improve every aspect of the system. He said his goal was to make sure another widespread outage never occurs.

Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico