At least one company rationing propane for customers

CEDARBURG (WITI) -- Wisconsin is dealing with a propane shortage, and that has at least one propane company rationing out the bottled gas to customers. FOX6 News spoke with one woman affected by the shortage who is now planning for life without propane.

"I think it s absolutely unbelievable something like this could happen," Wendy Kasten said.

Kasten relies on propane for things like gas cooking, dryers and heating parts of her home and she's not warming up to the issue of propane depletion.

"I do believe I will have a backup plan in case there are any problems or issues," Kasten said.

The bitterly cold weather this winter has her propane company, Boehlke Bottled Gas controlling its supply.

"We've really started to ration out fuel to our customers.  We're giving them short fills and at today's prices -- that's probably all they can afford too," Roger Boehlke said.

Kasten is one of the customers caught in the crisis.

"As opposed to coming and filling at 40% when they normally would be here to fill it when it`s at 40%, they are just going to let it go and wait until it gets to 10% as opposed to coming today and filling it and bring it to 100%," Kasten said.

The price of propane has risen substantially, but Kasten may not feel the hit until her tank is refilled. Meanwhile, the bottled gas expert suggests moderate usage.

"We hope the customers hang with us and watch their thermostats -- turn them down, conserve as much as they can and we'll try our best to keep them in product," Boehlke said.

Thankfully, Kasten's home isn't heated totally on propane, so she's now utilizing other options, and since her delivery schedule has been cut in half, the thought of it dwindling even more is causing slight concern for the future.

"I'm going to have to have a disaster recovery plan in place in case we are cut off by propane because propane does run our generators as well, which runs our electricity, which runs the heating of our floors -- it does have a cascading effect of things we never even thought of before," Kasten said.

Gov. Scott Walker has declared a State of Emergency in response to the propane shortage.

So what can YOU do?