Adjusting to life — and leaner wallets — after the gas boom

Hardly anyone ever does, not since the once-booming natural gas industry pulled up stakes amid a prolonged, severe slump in energy prices.

Times were good then; the 50-room Rodeway Inn was routinely filled with some of the legions of gas workers who helped turn Pennsylvania from a bit energy player into the nation's No. 2 natural gas-producing state, after Texas.

[...] with the number of rigs drilling for oil and gas falling to all-time lows across the nation last week, Patel and other residents and business owners in Pennsylvania's vast Marcellus Shale gas field are adjusting to life after the boom — while hoping for the eventual return of an industry that pumped billions of dollars into the economy.

Because I'm just not having the hundred-dollar bills handed to me like they were, you know?

Towanda's story is playing out everywhere the drillers are leaving or have left, places like Gillette, Wyoming, and Oklahoma City, where there have been massive job layoffs at energy company headquarters and the downturn has blown a billion-dollar hole in the state budget, leading to funding cuts to schools, prisons and other services.

Energy firms and the businesses that directly cater to them are laying off thousands of workers in Pennsylvania, with 1 in 5 jobs disappearing in a single year.

Gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale — the nation's largest natural-gas field — is selling at a deep discount, the result of oversupply and inadequate pipeline capacity to take the gas to far-flung energy markets.

The low prices are good for consumers and businesses and manufacturers that use gas, but they're costing energy companies billions.

[...] with sales down 50 percent or more, they've expanded into party rentals to make up the lost revenue — from ball valves to bounce houses.