The transit shutdown? No, it couldn’t. it was announced Sunday night, and has only happened one other time (during Irene) and in that case the system was undamaged by the storm and it was restarted within 24 hours.
Mass Transit being shut down for more than 24 hours has happened before… never.
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it doesn’t seem like they really had quite that much warning (or, at least, a warning with a reasonable degree of certainty behind it). Even three or four days out, the exact path was still somewhat unclear, and everyone from Virginia to New England was potentially under the gun. Yes, Sandy was going to hit the East Coast, hard…but the uncertainty was behind exactly where that would be, and that’s what made the difference in what you’re describing.
Yes, if you (“you” being a refinery, a gas station, etc.) decide to take strong precautions like you describe, and you wind up being in the area which is actually affected, you could make out well. Those precautions do cost money, and if it doesn’t pay out, you’ve just lost money. If “you” were a gas station owner in suburban D.C. (which was being warned of possible devastating storm impacts in the days before the storm), and you invested money in that contingency, it very likely would have been wasted money, as the bigger storm impact wound up being a bit further north.
Businesses don’t seek every possible profit, just the possible profits which they believe have a high likelihood of actually paying out. A businessperson who makes bad bets doesn’t generally remain a businessperson.
You’re also assuming that there’s just more capacity within the gasoline production and distribution system (which could be used to make contingency plans) than there really may be.
Price gouging laws removed any incentive for station owners to make extra effort?
I would imagine that you cannot simply connect any old generator to operate the pumps.
Firstly you’d need an installed connection point, and this would entail having a safety changeover switch - this would have to be interlocked to prevent trying to connect a generator into a live circuit, and prevent the live power coming online into a system already serviced by an emergency generator.
These are gas stations, so you can expect that not any old generator would be allowed, they would have to be spark and flame protected so they cannot initiate an incident. You are going to get people filling up all sorts of containers with gas and it is inevitable that there will be spillages and hence flammable fumes in the air.
The staff who operate this equipment are also going to have to know what they are doing, which means a certain amount of training - not just the mere operation of the stuff but also any emergency and contingency plans.
It’s very likely that regulations regarding the safe use of emergency generators are going to demand some significant safety precautions, and those provisions are likely to be fairly expensive - all for a once in a lifetime event.
If you don’t have power, how are all the tills and other retail equipment going to work? In the UK we have numberplate recognition cameras, and these will not allow a particular pump to operate if the vehicle number is suspect. Do doubt there is some sort of bypass to it, but all this shows that power is needed for more than just the pumps - how will the fire detectors work without power, and the installed fire-fighting systems that are typically fitted into many gas station canopies?
You know what’s funny? Me and Hello Again are the only people I know of in this thread who are affected by this, and we don’t think the various parties did all that terrible a job of preparing for an unprecedented storm. Perhaps we know a little better what can be predicted and what preparations are realistic - the constantly changing predictions tend to make me a little more forgiving. I remember the people who were furious about the transit shutdown and other preparations made last year before Irene. They were furious because the damage was further north than predicted and therefore the shutdown was “unnecessary”. Seems that you can’t win- if you “underprepare” you didn’t anticipate what you should have and if you “overprepare” you caused uneccessary hardship.
Oh, and last years transit shutdown was on a Saturday and they system was back running on Sunday. No weekdays involved.
Sorta off subject, but amusing anyway. Here in the great Pacific Northwest, shortly after the TV news comes out with a big storm forecast, the hardware and home supply stores all post big signs saying “NO RETURNS ON GENERATORS”.
There is not a lot of excess refining capacity in this country, and the gas formulations vary by state. If the distribution channel is disrupted, it isn’t entirely simple to resolve even if the regulatory restrictions are lifted.
Also, “anti-price gouging” laws have the unintended effect of driving up demand, which makes the shortage even worse.
And if you’re worried about tanker trunks being damaged by hurricane winds, think about hundreds of thousands of flooded vehicles plus a ton of gasoline-powered engines (mowers and such) with their liquid contents oozing out. It happened in Katrina. Winds aren’t the problem. Don’t know the vehicle count yet for Sandy but it’s probably a little bit north of a bunch.
A retail-level gas station owner who accurately foresaw what would happen with the storm coming may have been in no position to just call up a topping-up of his tanks on-demand, and the local fuel distributor may have been themselves in no position to fill that order. The distributor-level facilities (tanks, trucks) are finite and generally just well matched to the regular market movement, and in turn above their level there is not much idle “reserve capacity” of refineries, pipelines and tankers just sitting there turnkey-ready to take a last minute rush of orders.
I think a part of the problem is the urgency in getting people and businesses back to work – understandable since while everything’s shut down nobody’s getting paid or supplied with necessities, but it then creates a peak demand for things (energy, transportation) that are just what the disaster took down.
No, Hurricane Sandy was not forecast weeks in advance. It formed as a tropical storm on Oct 22 down here in the Caribbean. Sandy made landfall in Jamaica Oct 24 as a Cat 1 hurricane. On Oct 26 Mayor Bloomberg mentioned NYC was starting to make preparations. Gov Cuomo declared a state of emergency on Oct 28 for NYS. Landfall in New Jersey was Oct 29 - one week after initial formation in the western Caribbean.
No, oil companies do not have hundreds of trucks on standby (and that is what it would take) to supply an area the size of the NYC tri-state via convoy. It is not just a few extra trucks. If one local truck can deliver six truck loads per day (maybe not the same driver… staff it 24/7 for emergency situation) from a local distribution point then it takes six trucks departing from a half day drive away to replace 1 local truck… or 12 trucks from 1 day’s drive away… 18 trucks from 1.5 days drive away… and so on.
Predicting the precise path a hurricane will take is an improving, but still inexact science. Moving things out of the way based upon the latest predictions just might be moving them into the storm’s path. (Just check with dive company Bob Soto’s which lost 23 out of 24 their boats doing just that in 2004 Hurricane Ivan in Cayman.)
I’m affected. Much as I hate to defend oil companies, this isnt’ their fault. As others have pointed out, in many parts of New York City, where I live, as well as parts of New Jersey and Connecticut and Long Island, there was simply no way to get a tanker truck anywhere near gas stations. Bridges were closed, or washed out, along with some of the major roads. Power was out, and is still out, in many areas, making it impossible for stations to pump gas, and for gas hubs or depots to pump gas into tanker trucks. Even if a convoy of tankers was sent up from Louisiana to this area, once the trucks got close, there was no way for them to get to, say, Rockaway, or Long Beach Island.
Certainly there are people who are trying to fill their tanks even though they really don’t have to, making the shortage worse. That will always happen. My car is, fortunately, high and dry and safe, and I’m leaving it there until things are back to normal.
Many of the roads were impassable, and bridges were closed. Even when stations had power, demand it high and they quickly run out.
My family lives on the eastern end of Long Island. It would have taken a drive of 80 miles over roads with trees down and wires lying on them to reach the gas stations. They got some relief when the Cross-Sound Ferry were able to waive restrictions and allow two tankers to land at Orient.
My mother had a full tank of gas, as did my brothers. But one of my brother has a generator, and that’s been the big problem: he couldn’t keep a lot of gas on hand and when he ran out, he needed to get more.
Do you really think that gas stations are sitting on a lot of reserve tanks that they aren’t filling? Do they typically say to the tanker driver, “only a quarter full this week, Hank. I’m sure you’ll be back soon and I don’t want the gas to go stale.”? There are simply limits to how much gas can be stored in the area.
Given that your capacity is limited, even if you know for sure that the power is going out, it may not even be worth it to get a generator. You can do a calculation of the maximum profit you are going to make on a full tank, and see if that is more than the cost of a generator. Not all business decisions are “see an opportunity and take it”, some, most even, are “see an opportunity, run the numbers, see that it’s probably not worth it.”
I’m also in the area, although thankfully we’ve had power and all that all through this. A couple of nights ago the ten-block gas line went right past my apartment building, and we are currently harboring a refugee from long island whose house got flooded (including doing a manual parallel park job where she ran out of gas while waiting in the fuel line).
Generally, I think the response has been good. The gas lines are inconveniencing people, but no ones dying of sparse fuel. At least in my area, you have to plan where you’re getting fuel from, and you might have to wait in a line, but people are getting gas (aforementioned refugee was able to get gas the next day, including buying a gas can to carry it in). It strikes me as “shortage, but not critical shortage”.
No, I think they are sitting on tanks that are not completely filled much of the time, like my car’s gas tank often is.
I have no idea how often a gas delivery is normally made. I have no experience with relationships between gas suppliers and retail dispensing establishments. If the proprietor can’t call up his distributor and request a little earlier delivery or a little greater supply within a week, then there is no capacity in the system for anything unusual. In that case, the customers are fucked.
If allocations cannot be shifted to certain areas in the country as needed and there is no flexibility in the delivery system to accommodate storms that we know can happen and will happen, then the customers are fucked.
I guess that’s just the best we can do and customers will have to live with it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some politicians aren’t using this experience to ramp up introduction of bills requiring emergency or backup procedures to be implemented for next time. Not that I’m in favor of such bills – I’m not – but that is likely the result. Politicians think that if the system doesn’t work by itself, it will have to be shocked into benevolence by law.
I think we do prepare for it as best we can within the limits imposed by the distribution networks for our various utilities and supplies. Do you think we just sit here and pray for the best?
For the record, I am very impressed that the affected states were as prepared as they were, and their post-disaster response has been exemplary. For places that don’t usually get high wind and water events like this I think they did as best as could be expected.
doreen:
I’m in New York City, also affected, and my tank is almost empty now, but I’ll add my vote to this statement. The storm was massive, and when a harbor is shut down, you can expect that there won’t be business as usual for a while. I truly don’t understand people like Musicat who think that the disaster response has been lacking in any egregious way.
The news is full of stories about how lacking it was. Maybe you haven’t seen them due to lack of power?
Could be the response was better than nothing, but it was a long ways from ideal. How much it could be improved, I don’t know, but it seems like some of the more obvious angles were not approached.
No , it’s not ideal. It is however, better than I expected it would be given what was known and when it was known. There’s a difference between wishing it were better and thinking it realistically could be better. People who are actually suffering have an excuse for unrealistic expectations , but you aren’t suffering and don’t even know how much or if the response could have been improved.
You talk about shifting gas allocations - that gas would have needed to be on its way by Sunday at the latest. Did you know where the storm would make landfall and exactly which areas would be affected last Saturday or Sunday? If you did, I want your crystal ball, because no one else knew for sure until late Monday afternoon. If you were actually on the East Coast, you would remember what happened last year with Irene- the predictions were that NYC would be hit hard. The predictions were wrong and NYC didn’t have as much damage as predicted , but the Hudson Valley, Vermont and other areas were devastated. Moving gas supplies to NYC wouldn’t have been much help if it was needed in the Catskills.
Sorry… just couldn’t pass on this one.
“Well, the brakes are shot on this one, but there’s an emergency. Grab this tanker with 9,000 gallons of highly flammable fuel and head over those mountains!”
Many high-volume retail gas stations get several deliveries a week to top-off their tanks. Also, NYC stations have relatively small tanks compared to other areas which may compound the problem. Plus, as many have said before, the logistics of gasoline distribution are designed to maximize the utility of each truck; that is, if a truck is operational, it should be in service.
Finally, it is my understanding that as soon as a dealer orders gas, the funds are paid to the oil company. If a typical station has 20,000 gallons or more of storage, at $4/gallon that’s a lot of inventory cost to sit on if the demand doesn’t materialize.