Eric Longman

Internet geek. Project Manager. Propellerhead.

Today I waited in line for over 30 minutes to buy a tank of gas…and felt lucky for how it worked out.  30 minutes in line at a Kroger 15 miles from my house which was one of the ONLY places that even HAD gas, and not only that, but they had all grades and didn’t place any limits on what you could buy.

This gas shortage seems to be fairly specific to metro Atlanta and Nashville, TN, from what I can tell, and apparently was due to a confluence of factors including Hurricane Ike (which caused the pipeline that primarily supplies Atlanta’s gas to shut down temporarily) and the EPA’s requirement that we use some special kind of low-sulfur gas because of our pollution problems.

What’s odd is that the EPA temporarily rescinded the fuel restrictions earlier in the week, but the shortages have only gotten worse, and I can’t understand that.  To my knowledge, all but five of the refineries that were damaged in Hurricane Ike are back online, and since we can use whatever fuel we can get, presumably everybody should be resupplied. 

I just feel lucky to have a full tank of gas again.  When I was at half a tank, I considered filling up but decided against it since I didn’t want to exacerbate the problem (some have speculated that part of the problem is that people are panicking and filling up earlier than they normally would).  So I waited until the low fuel light came on, and then started to get really nervous as I passed station after station after station that simply had no gas.  Honestly, only about 1 in 10 stations has ANYTHING.

Anyway, it is what it is.  I’ve got another 320 miles worth of gas in the tank, so I should be OK for another week or so.  Hopefully, by then the shortage will have eased a bit.