You know you’ve got a national infrastructure to be proud of when one of the country’s largest cities is pretty much out of gas. From the Tennessean:
East Tennessee and Middle Tennessee both primarily receive fuel supplies through spurs of the Colonial pipeline, which carries refined gasoline from the Texas Gulf Coast to the Northeast. [Hurricane] Ike damaged and knocked out power to many of those refineries, cutting the amount of gasoline fed into the pipeline.
The shortage should be remedied by next week, the paper reports:
The state is scheduled to receive 1.42 million barrels of gasoline over the next week, roughly matching its typical demand of 1.44 million barrels, Heidt said.
“Gas prices remain higher in Middle Tennessee” [The Tennessean] (Thanks to Jessica!)
(Photo: Pat Hawks)
More From Consumerist
-
Scammers Pretend To Buy Gas Station, Hold Amazing Sale, Run Away
-
Sandy Prompts Panic At The Gas Pump, Things Get Heated As Customers Rush To Fill Up
-
Citibank Locks Man Out Of Bank Account Until He Repays The $84K Worth Of Gas He Didn’t Buy
-
Gas Station Responds To Higher Gas Prices By Turning Off Pumps
-
NJ Sues Businesses For Price-Gouging After Hurricane Sandy
To add on to this, I live in Asheville, NC a few hours away and for the past week or so and roughly 9 out of 10 stations are 100% empty, or they receive enough gas for roughly 9am to 12pm service. One station seems to be receiving constant supply (shell) and after going out into town 3 times today it has had a line of over 20 cars every single time I’ve gone by. Last week they were empty as well and I had to drive to over 7 stations to find gas. Current price is hovering at around 4.19
I just filled up my wife’s car last night, no problem. There wasn’t even a line. They only had 87 octane, however.
Yeah, there are still gas stations in Georgia that are out of gas due to the panic. I haven’t heard of a lot of them being out though.
The local stations are finally starting to get a regular supply of regular gas.
I think most of the problem is you still have people riding around with half a tank or more of gas buying it up every time they pass a station that has some gas. When Ike rolled in, I actually HAD to buy gas, I was down to about 1/3rd of a tank. I’d like to know how many of these morons that were waiting in line had 3/4 of a tank or more and were, “topping off, just in case”, kind of like the bozos that raid the grocery stores for milk and bread each time the weatherman threatens snow here.
If I recall from Katrina, distributors usually have about a 10-14 day buffer in the supply chain. The panics that the media creates by painting the picture of doom and gloom of gas shortages needs to be addressed.
Nashville does tend to freak out plus the fact that there are so many pickups and SUV’s with monster size fuel capacities. One person I know slept in his van until 3:00am Saturday morning to buy gas.
We did see a jump in prices north of Nashville just before Ike hit. Prices went from $3.54 (or $3.539999) to $3.76 overnight and then to $3.9999 within the afternoon and then to $4.259999 before they ran out.
I cracked up that when 1 of the 3 stations ran out of regular at $3.99 people were trolling it and then going to buy regular at $4.26 at the other two rather than buying premium at $4.24 at the first station- which is what I did.
I also had a back up plan of two pickups we keep filled up which I could have siphoned for the fuel efficient econoboxes the wife and I drive daily…