Its not just gasoline that is going to be running out throughout the Southeast soon. Major supplies of jet fuel are arguably in an even worse situation.
Here's a graf from am major airline industry journal:
Airlines and oil companies are working on plans to supply jet fuel to at least ten U.S. airports that could be shut down due to a lack of jet fuel caused by refinery and pipeline shutdowns from hurricane Katrina. The airports in most jeopardy for closure include
Atlanta, Charlotte, Ft. Lauderdale, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Tampa, Washington Dulles and West Palm Beach.
With future supply uncertain, airlines are working on plans to allocate jet fuel at critically short airports. "While some airports may have up to five days of supply we have to expect that we won't receive additional shipments for some time. We either run down to flumes or we try to make it last as long as possible," said one airline fuel manager. Today, airlines are working on plans to allocate fuel in hopes of extending available supply at problem locations.
By far the two most affected carriers will be Delta and US Airways. To a lesser extent United and American will also be affected.
Something like 60% of all of Delta's traffic flows through its Atlanta hub, and it is by far their most profitible. In addition, Delta has major operations out of Florida in Orlando-MCO, and New Orleans-MSY is a major destination for them as well.
US Airways has one of its two major hubs in Charlotte, NC although its most important hub is in Philadelphia, PA. US Airways also has large operations in Fort Lauderdale, FL and are almost as large out of New Orleans as Delta.
The other two large hub operations that would probably be affected by this are United's Washington/Dulles hub and American's Miami hub. Dulles is nowhere near as important to United as Atlanta is to Delta. Although its not mentioned, if Fort Lauderdale is having problems, is almost certain that Miami is having them too. American has their primary South American hub there, and adding in Katrina's appearance in South Florida, things cannot be good.
If you live in the Southeast, you are largely dependent on these two carriers for your air service needs. Between them, I'd estimate that they control at least 40 to 60% of all air traffic that originates in the Southeast. Smaller cities, like Florence, SC, Wilmington, NC, and Columbus, GA are totally dependent on these two airlines for service.
This is actually going to have an impact on me, as I'm scheduled to fly out of Charlotte this Saturday to Montreal for vacation. Things have just gotten a lot more interesting.