Panic buying. Long lines at the store. Empty shelves.
Rumors of who has some and who is all out.
Sound familiar?
It’s not toilet paper or hand sanitizer
or Covid vaccine this time.
It’s gasoline!
Colonial Pipeline, the main gas conduit supplying the East Coast, was closed down late last week by a cyberattack. By Tuesday night it was dawning on people that possibly there wouldn’t be enough gas to go around before the pipeline was up and flowing again. In spite of reassurances from officials and experts and pleas not to horde, people rushed out to top off their tanks, whether they needed to or not. Long lines at every station still open resulted in traffic jams.
“Panic pumpers,” the media is calling them.
By yesterday we were low on gas and searched for over an hour before finding a station with fuel.
Why was there no line???
They were not price gouging as some stations were but they were only taking cash.
We saw several cars drive away but happily we had some cash and were able to get some gas in our tank and be on our way.
By last evening there was no gas available in town.
Here’s a good motto for the 2020s.
(And carry cash. 😊)
Oh no.... We've heard about that in Hawaii. The weird thing is there were suddenly LONG lines here at the Sams Club gas station. That's really panic buying!
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, Cynthia. I usually have some cash on me, but generally not much, rarely more than twenty or thirty dollars. Perhaps I should be rethinking that.
ReplyDeleteOne of us always has cash on hand. Interesting that that station had no lines because people had no cash to buy.
ReplyDeleteCertainly on the US - ABC US news here 12.30 pm ( Somebody Reid as the BLAND and BORING reader - a bomb could go off under his
ReplyDeletearse and he'd just go on - so boring to watch and listen to) and then the PBS news at 1.00 pm here on SBS channel with that
"should be out to pasture compere - Judy Woodruff" ???)
Quite incredible BUT your gas (petrol) is so much cheaper than petrol here.
Cheers
Colin
when there's a shortage of some things people seem to lose all of their security.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, sounds like a mess what if ran out of petrol whilst searching for it.
ReplyDeleteWe found out always to carry some cash when travelling and often we took petrol with us in a correct container.
I heard about the cyberattack a few days ago. It sounded serious. If that had happened here panic buying would have followed immediately. The panic buying of food and other products at the beginning of lockdown was the fault of the press hyping up the shortages. Shortages were only created by the panic buying. I hope they get your pipelines running again soon although I imagine it will take a while to stock up your gas stations.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've spent any cash during the last year as shops have been asking everyone to pay by contactless card if possible. I hope they are able to sort out the fuel situation there soon.
ReplyDeleteOops! comment disappeared. That last photo was priceless.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it crazy! Thankfully, I had just filled the car with gas before all this happened. I go very little so a tank of gas goes a long way here. If it not one thing, it's another. :)
ReplyDeleteNo shortages of gas here yet! I recall in 1973-74 when I had to wait in line three hours for gas in Florida. What we are short of is canning lids and supplies, pretzel buns and Outshine Fruit Bars. I thought we were short of Windex but went to a different store that had some.
ReplyDeleteYou have made a good point, Cynthia, and now I am thinking that we should plan to have some cash available when we travel to hour home state (NJ) in a couple of weeks. While gas prices have risen here in NH the past few weeks, we haven’t seen any No Gas signs, thankfully. Our payment method is always by credit card as we never have as much spare cash that would be needed to fill the tank. Years ago, I can recall waiting in line for gas in NJ during a time of shortages.
ReplyDelete