(Portsmouth, RI)--We have hit the one-year anniversary mark for the Aquidneck Island natural gas outage crisis.Thousands of customers lost gas service during a very cold stretch of weather; the outage lasted about a week.A report released from the state blamed the outage on the extreme cold leading to high demand, and also blamed, among others, National Grid.The company says it has taken steps to prepare for gas operations on the island for this winter season, including trucked liquid natural gas equipment that will be available for use at its property on Old Mill Lane in Portsmouth; that site was said to have become operational at the end of November.