My sister called me traveling from Alabama back to Nashville on I-24 W last night. I was going to stop for gas she told me but the two gas stations off the exit had a line of cars. A truck driver told her that gas prices would increase a dollar by tomorrow and people are filling up.
"Gas isn't going up a dollar I told her. People would riot."
Boy was I wrong.
Fears of gas shortages are leading to exploitation in some parts of the Southeast where some stations are reported to be charging as much as $6 a gallon for gas.
Source
Gas prices in some parts of the country have seen giant
spikes as some owners try to profit off Hurricane Ike and
fears of gas shortages.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)
So it isn't bad enough that we have to wait with bated breath as to whether our fellow citizens are going to be okay as Hurricane Ike continues, we have to deal with unscrupulous merchants that would take advantage of any situation to exploit fellow Americans. Country first?
In North Carolina, Gov. Mike Easley has declared a state of "abnormal market disruption" and signed an order allowing the attorney general to enforce the state's anti-gouging law. In South Carolina, Attorney General Henry McMaster invoked a similar law for his state, and Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear declared a state of emergency.
So my other sister calls this afternoon to say she stopped for gas in Columbia, TN and prices had shot up about sixty cents. She lives about 45 minutes away in Toney, AL where she says they are limiting cars to ten gallons.
DORA, Ala.-- At gas stations up and down highway 78, lines formed all day as people feared a gas shortage.
Charlotte Nethery of Cresview BP in Dora instituted a voluntary ten gallon per person limit, but it didn’t seem like many people were paying attention.
“Some people are bringing gas cans and filling them up, then the emergency vehicles and the people going to work they’re not going to have any gas because we’re trying to limit it to ten gallons per person,” Nethery said.
Source
I haven't seen an increase here in Hermitage, TN, an eastern suburb of Nashville although my dad did say that they were out of the mid grade at Exxon on the corner of Andrew Jackson and Lebanon Road. He had to go a few miles further (he only uses Exxon) to the Exxon by the interstate but no price increases yet.
Guess I better go get some gas.