Last Friday my sleepy little Florida town gave into tropical storm of panic and hype created by chain emails, phone calls, local media and The Weather Channel as drivers lined up at gas stations to fill up before Ike made landfall. Never mind the fact that we didn’t even get a single drop of rain or the slightest breeze from the hurricane. And never mind the fact that even people directly within the path of the storm were not blindly giving way to this sort of panic.
By Friday afternoon our town was completely without gas. All gone. Nada. And while a few stores received additional shipments over the weekend, the majority of stations across town remained completely empty all weekend. Even today it’s a scramble to find somewhere to fill up. Before all the hullabaloo I think gas was somewhere around $3.70ish. I saw one station selling for $5.36 this weekend. When we passed by about 20 mins later, they were sold out.
I needed to fill up on Friday, but I didn’t out of principle because I didn’t want to be one of ‘those people.’ I thought it would blow over by the time the weekend was out and I’d pick up some gas before I got to work today. Man, was that a stupid idea. I had to empty the gallon of gas we keep for the weed wacker just to make it in to work today. If I don’t fill up today I may have to work from home tomorrow.
I try not to cave in to the hype, but I figured this weekend would be a great weekend to refill the gas cans in the shed. I also figured it would be a great time to buy some more fuel stabilizer. That way, if I get stuck, I could always siphon out the gas in my generator.
I filled up both my vehicles before Gustav - and I’m in the Midwest, by the time hurricanes reach up they’re just a lot of rain. I drive so little these days, though, that my tanks are still at 3/4’s.
When this load of hype settles down, in about two weeks, I’ll probably top them both off again. Barring any other natural or man-made disasters.
Yeah, I hope you don’t pre-mix your weedeater gas. At least if you notice a strange sound coming from your car, you’ll know what went wrong.
I went to lunch with a coworker Friday; as we left work at 11:30, gas was $3.59. When we got back to work an hour later, it was $4.03. An hour after that it was $4.15. My coworker told me that that morning they were limiting people to 10 gallons of gas each at a well-known chain throughout the nearby large city. :rolleyes: I ended up having to fill up, but was lucky enough to find $3.99 gas at the station I normally use. I still asked the clerk if she would please come outside and hold a gun on me as I filled up so I could have the full experience. Good thing she laughed.
You forgot about toilet paper. When Hannah was headed for NC I was about to take a trip to Chicago, and my primary concern was weather the projected rain for Saturday would delay my flight (fortunately, it didn’t). It wasn’t until Friday night that I realized I was down to three rolls of toilet paper, and commented on this to the friend that was going to feed my cats while I was gone, who’s always reminding me whenever there’s bad weather coming that I need to be sure to stock up on milk, bread, and toilet paper.
One of what people? People who have the foresight to fill up at $3.85 Friday instead of $5.20 on Sunday (if you can get any at all)? I guess if you were trying to demonstrate how smart you are, you certainly succeeded…
One of the idiots who act like Chicken Little and buy up the entire stock of a continuously available good, driving prices wild and making supplies short. It’s like folks who make a run on a bank, the bank runs out of money and the idiots who made the run act like they were prescient. They weren’t, their stupid actions were the CAUSE of the problem.
I got a call like this from my MIL, 930pm telling me to rush out and fill up the car, because her sister told her that prices had gone way up in Detroit. Bah! I’m not dealing with that nonsense.
Meh. Putting old 50:1 gas/oil mix in a car is a reasonable way to dispose of old mixtures. At worst it might muck up the oxygen sensors or coat the spark plugs but probably not if you have enough regular gas to dilute it.
Bingo. The only reason there’s no gas in town is because people worked themselves into a tizzy and those who didn’t really need to fill up went and did so anyways. If everyone had gotten gas as usual, we wouldn’t be out all over town. And there’s no shortage statewide, it’s just in my town that this is an issue.
I did manage to find some gas at lunch and paid $4.19 for regular. No ill effects from the gallon I put in earlier, either.
If this is truely what happened, I would have threated to report them if they didn’t charge me the original rate. Then I would have reported them anyway. It’s not nice to gouge people.
It’s only gouging if they change price on the same shipment of gas. If they get another shipment in, and they had to pay more for that shipment they can then increase the price at the pump. There are tons of accusations of gouging pouring in, though.
Yet in Michigan where we had no hurricane ,the gas price went up and up…from about 3.65 to 4.25 in short order. Crude dropped to 95 today. The difference between 95 a barrel and 4.25 a gallon is making somebody very rich.
The wholesale gas price went up to $4.89 in Florida this week, so although there’s plenty of gas available, the individual gas stations are trying not to buy it because they’ll actually be selling it at a loss.
Yes, really.
Most of our (FL’s) gasoline comes from Louisiana refineries (rather than Texas), so once the shipments which were delayed by the hurricane (actual shipping delays caused by the boats not leaving port because of the storm, not refinery problems) things will even out.
That sucks, though, XJGX. I tried to make it through the weekend without filling up so I wouldn’t add to the panic, but I was literally running on fumes when I got home Sunday night - the engine was cutting out during right turns - so I had to give in.
Did you really go into a thread complaining about shortages to complain about rising prices?!
You do realize, don’t you, that if gas stations would have raised their prices immediately, then all the idiots that the OP is complaining about wouldn’t have gone and filled their tanks if they didn’t really need it.
It is precisely because of people whining about “gouging” and making laws against selling limited commodities at market prices that we have shortage problems like this. Going around and “reporting” gas stations is contributing to the problem, you moron.
Many of the gas stations here are refusing to replenish their stocks because they would have to buy (and sell) at a higher price and they don’t want to be accused of gouging. It’s a catch-22. If only people would just chill the fuck out and keep to their normal purchasing habits none of this would be a problem.
I don’t mind paying more for my gas. I just want to be able to get it when I need it. It may be time to go out and get that scooter now.
