Gas Panic

While driving back and forth to chess club last night, I saw lines spilling over into the streets at gas stations along Merrimon Ave. My first thought was that maybe it was a radio station promotion--$2 gas for the first hundred customers or some such.

Wrong.

This morning I found out from the morning paper that, between the refineries on the Gulf coast and power outages along a gas pipeline, there was very little gas coming into Western NC--or a lot of other places in the South. Georgia and NC have, it appears, been especially badly hit.

The result is a gas panic, with people rushing to the stations to fill up--and, in the process--draining all the stations. Gas was up to $4--yes $4--a gallon for the 'cheap' stuff at a couple of spots.

After some public tough talk about price-gouging, though, the local paper is now reporting prices 'back' in the $3 range.In a way it doesn't matter. At this point, about 2/3rds of the stations are completely out of gas.

We're fine. As it happened I gased up the cars in the last few days, and the MR-2 can run forever on one tank-full.

What bothers me about this the most is that people here are really jumpy about this.

Folks, this is Nothing compared to what's happening near New Orleans. Nothing.

S_V