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I’m not kidding. I heard via my cousin and aunt who live down there that they’re having trouble getting gas – and when they do get it it’s up to something like $4.10 a gallon.
I haven’t seen anything about it in the national news, however.
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Google News turns up a bunch of local coverage. Based on some quick scans of stories, it seems like states in the Southeast are particularly dependent on a small number of Gulf Coast refineries and pipelines. Disruption of this infrastructure by the two recent hurricanes and with panic-behavior by consumers appear to be the two major culprits.
Actually another culprit is that Atlanta has something called “boutique gas”. I don’t understand it completely but we have major smog issues here and supposedly the gas is somehow cleaner(?)It is not only more expensive(by how much I don’t know) and recent hurricane activity has made it hard to bring the gas into the city. I have to say I have been driving as little as possible in Atlanta this week. There is supposed to be some relief next week, but nothing is definite.. If you have ever been to Atlanta, most of the city and burbs are really spread out, hence much more driving.
“I haven’t seen anything about it in the national news, however.”
Hurricane Ike.
The Galveston refineries were shut down for about 10 days. Galveston supplies gasoline to the southeast corridor. They warned people well in advance that there would be shortages.
I heard plenty about it on the news. Minor disruptions can lead to long delays since refineries can only refine so much at a time, plus they have to change the formulas twice a year in many states to ensure the correct blends for different conditions. Some neighboring states, to keep pollution down (the EPA still has some teeth, especially when highway funds are connected to compliance,) have worked out deals to have the same fuel blends rather than have a lot of different blends in the same geographic region.
There are a lot of bottlenecks and potential bottlenecks in our supplies of basic things. Most supermarkets have a three-day supply of what they sell, most gas stations need constant refilling, the ATMs don’t have infinite cash, and it all depends on well-organized but also somewhat fragile systems. And that’s why we put a lot of money into rail, roads, bridges, electical lines and all the rest every year but it’s still not enough. Probably never will be, since we have a hell of a time dealing with now and can’t afford our own future.
Yeah, there’s local coverage, but not as much info as people would like… but I guess it’s wishful thinking. It’s not like the news can really report “hey, this station on Piedmont and 10th has gas now! GO!”
I was stuck from Friday to Monday without gas but found a station on Monday night, but even then regular was $4.30 a gallon. The problem is that Atlanta’s mas transit system is abysmal; there’s hardly any option other than driving.
I live in Charlotte and there is NO GAS here! I drove around looking yesterday and all I did was burn the little gas that I had left. I cannot drive my car until all gas stations are at full capacity again because I am below E.
I’m wondering why the Reserves haven’t been released. It is madness down here — people getting in fist fights, lines well over an hour long, folks not being able to make it to work.
I am hearing that it’ll be another 2-4 days but we will see!
It’s combination of things – we are very dependent on the Colonial Pipeline and, due to air quality regulations, we are supposed to have cleaner-burning gas in the 46 county (I think that’s the right figure) metro area than is allowed outside of that area. (As an aside, calling it “boutique fuel” just irritates me; if all areas used cleaner burning gas regardless of regulation, we would all be better off, no? Anyway.) People starting flipping out the Friday that Ike hit, and gas supply has been dwindling since – we are seeing quarter, half mile lines of people at stations that DO have gas, and today on the way to work, all but one station (a hidden-away Sam’s Club station) had no gas. It’s been that way since Monday, easily. I’ve seen two stations in all of North Fulton County/East Cobb County that had gas at all this week, and those two are, as far as I know, sold out. Nashville is supposed to be worse off than we are.
There is supposed to be a “very large shipment” of gasoline into Charlotte today, but this is really becoming a problem. Lines out onto the streets and stretching for blocks in North Charlotte.
Those stations that do have gas are reaching up to $4.20 a gallon.
The reserves weren’t released because it was the refineries that were down, not the supply of crude.
Today, we are all Georgians.
Atlantans prefer driving over mass transit by a substantial margin. It could be argued that more of us would hop on MARTA if only the system were more expansive, rail especially. But take away our ability to hop in the car on a whim and go from the suburbs to downtown or vice versa, and people get mad in a hurry. And that is exactly what the gas shortage has done.
Here is how the week has gone: I pass about five gas stations during my eight mile morning commute from home to work. Of these five, only one has been likely to have gasoline. That one station will have lines of cars stretching out for a quarter-mile or more. Co-workers of mine have waited in such lines for almost an hour. And yes, people have run their tanks dry this way.
Our gasoline is brought up from the Gulf by companies like Colonial Pipeline. The pipeline pulls the fuel up to distribution centers. Tankers take the product those final miles to the stations. Gas stations get shipments of around 3,000 gallons at a time, from what I’ve read. Normally, this is enough to get them through most of a week. But with everyone and their cousin lining up at the sight of an arriving tanker — people have been stalking tanker trucks, by the way — 3,000 gallons is gone before lunchtime.
So why do they all line up? Because we have no reliable information. We cannot plan. News from earlier this week hinted that supplies should be back to normal by this Wednesday (it wasn’t) or next Wednesday. Our governor told us yesterday that the situation will settle down in “a few days.” He said also that this is a panic we’ve made ourselves, unhelpfully.
So yeah, people here are panicking a bit. But not without reason. Empty my cupboard, then don’t tell me when I’m going to eat again and I’m probably going to seize the next opportunity to grab a bite. If only Colonial Pipeline would keep us in the loop. Or maybe if our Governor would institute a plan of action, like maybe closing stations for a day or two, long enough for all of them to get back to normal inventory. Or they could do as stations are doing up in Chattanooga, holding people to only $30 or $40 worth of gas at a time.
This is imminently manageable, but we are at a loss for management.
I live in Western North Carolina and we’ve been experiencing this since Ike made landfall. Yes, that was a few weeks ago. I just finally got gas for the first time in three weeks because I would rather just ride my bike than sit in a two hour line where the jerk in front of me is filling three gas cans in addition to their tank. Production is significantly down, but if everyone hadn’t gone nuts with the panic pumping, begining when the hurricane first hit, the situation wouldn’t be this bad. Somehow, after 25 years on this planet, I’m still amazed at the illogical behavior that fear inspires in humans.
It’s not like the news can really report “hey, this station on Piedmont and 10th has gas now! GO!”
Reports on NPR are that radio stations in Atlanta do exactly that.
Louisiana is the main rail hub serving the southeast. When a hurricane halts the flow of goods to the hub, there is a resultant log jam of goods waiting to be processed through. It’s not just fuel. I work for a chemical manufacturer, and we are experiencing shortages as well.
Pay no attention to the global warming behind the curtain…
There was also talk from some oil executive – a plea, actually – that Governor Perdue postpone the UGA/Alabama football game in Athens because of the lack of gas. Athens officials are encouraging carpooling to the game.
Am I the only one who remembers odd / even plates with Carter?
Those were the days, huh.
Im in georgia as well in the metro atlanta area and this gas issue is just down right insane! People need to chill out and not go into a huge histeria! Hell I couldn’t even order pizza cause if this gas issue its nuts and I can’t find any info as to when we will have gas again! This just higly anoys me how people can get so insane!
You will not get any help from the local Goverment until someone is killed and it make NATIONAL Headlines or until there is civil unrest ie.Riots. I live in Atlanta and I can assure you one or bothe are quite possible very soon. The local Goverment needs to step in and take control Monday or things may get dangerous in my opinion.
The people in Atlanta are being quite patient but I am not sure how long that patience will last, you are talking about people’s lives here. Not being able to make it to work or go to the grocery store. Purdue must act now.
I live a little north of Atlanta and this is getting ridiculous. I was in line for 45 minutes at a Race Trac the other night to get gas just to get to school and that shit was vicious. I have several friends in different states who had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned how silly it’s getting out here. It’s so frustrating!
Most of the refineries are up and running now. I live in the southeast corridor, and I can’t even get to the grocery store now, let alone work. My car is so empty t hat I can’t sit in the gas line at the ONE station in town who has gas…for today. It switches up every day. Boutique gas? How is it that gas in LA is cheaper than gas in Georgia, aren’t they the smoggiest city every?? I think we are being screwed, and the fact that this isn’t in the news makes me even more angry. People need to know what we are going through here, it’s not fair. The prices jumped up to $5 a gallon the MORNING AFTER Ike hit Galveston – they were speculating, which is illegal – and charging up to $2 more per gallon on gas that they’d already purchased and was already sitting in their big tanks. I reported as many as I could, but I haven’t seen or heard of anyone being reprimanded for taking advantage of a crisis situation. Where is our governor? Twiddling his thumbs, no doubt, thinking about shutting down schools again (which I think was the dumbest idea ever.)
I have just found out that Governor Purdue IS ON VACATION (I added the vacation party) IN EUROPE, and before leaving he let the good citizens of Georgia know…there’s gas, you just have to look for it!
Sorry to hear that you all are going through that pain–I can’t even imagine the mayhem it mean for Los Angeles if we were in your situation. I heard it on the TV news this morning but not on Talk radio (surprisingly). I imagine that there is enough panic about the economy that many news organizations either don’t have the bandwidth–or don’t want to incite more panic. The fact that your governor is on vacation is outrageous; it’s about as outrageous as ALL of Congress observing the Jewish holidays (understandable for the Jewish people, certainly, but not ALL of Congress is Jewish). Unfortunately, I think we’re only seeing the beginning of the agony we will all soon face in our changing world economy and trade. Now is the time to work together–not hoard gas and essentials.