Fuel shortage means gridlock in lines for gasoline

Peo­ple line up at a gas sta­tion wait­ing to fill up Fri­day in Newark, N.J. In parts of New York and New Jer­sey, dri­vers lined up early Fri­day for hours at gas sta­tions that were strug­gling to stay sup­plied. The power out­ages and flood­ing caused by Super­storm Sandy have forced many gas sta­tions to close and dis­rupted the flow of fuel from refiner­ies to those sta­tions that are open. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Julio Cortez)

CHRISTOPHER SULLIVAN

Asso­ci­ated Press

NEW YORK — When it came to fuel sup­plies and patience, the New York metro area was run­ning close to empty Friday.

From storm-scarred New Jer­sey to parts of Con­necti­cut, a wide­spread lack of gaso­line or elec­tric­ity to pump it brought grous­ing, grid­lock and worse, com­pound­ing frus­tra­tions as mil­lions of Amer­i­cans strug­gled to return to nor­mal days after Super­storm Sandy. A man pulled a gun in one gas-line fra­cas that led to an arrest.

Lines of cars, and in many places queues of peo­ple on foot car­ry­ing bright red jerry cans for gen­er­a­tors, waited for hours for the pre­cious fuel. And those were the lucky ones. Other cus­tomers gave up after find­ing only closed sta­tions or dry pumps marked with yel­low tape or “No Gas” signs.

“EMPTY!” declared the red-type head­line dom­i­nat­ing the New York Daily News’ front page.

“I drove around last night and couldn’t find any­thing,” said a relieved Kwabena Sintim-Misa as he finally pre­pared to fill up Fri­day morn­ing in Fort Lee, N.J., near the George Wash­ing­ton Bridge, where the wait in line lasted three hours.

Arlend Pierre-Louis of Elmont, on Long Island, said he awoke at 4:30 a.m. to try to get gas.

When he finally found some — “the one work­ing pump in Elmont” — the line was so long he gave up and returned to his home, which still has no light or hot water.

At a Hess gas sta­tion in the Gowanus sec­tion of Brook­lyn, the 10-block line caused con­fu­sion among pass­ing drivers.

“There’s been a lit­tle scream­ing, a lit­tle yelling. And I saw one guy bang­ing on the hood of a car,” said Vince Levine, who got in line in his van at 5 a.m. and was still wait­ing at 8 a.m. “But mostly it’s been OK.”

While the snaking lines and frayed nerves revived mem­o­ries for some of the crip­pling Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, a cab­driver stuck in a 17-block line at a Man­hat­tan sta­tion remained philosophical.

“I don’t blame any­body,” said Harum Prince. “God, he knows why he brought this storm.”

Many tried to heed Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s admo­ni­tion to “have some patience” as the stricken metro area recov­ers from the unprece­dented storm that upended daily life with power out­ages, food short­ages and other frus­tra­tions besides lack of fuel.

But tem­pers boiled over in some places.

Argu­ments in gas sta­tion queues in New York’s Queens bor­ough and in Pel­ham led to arrests, author­i­ties said. In the first case, a man pulled a gun, and in the sec­ond police con­fis­cated a box cut­ter. No one was hurt.

Power out­ages that lin­gered across the region pre­vented some gas sta­tions that had fuel from being able to pump it, offi­cials said. But fuel sup­plies them­selves were badly dis­rupted by the storm.

Sandy dam­aged ports that accept fuel tankers and flooded under­ground equip­ment that sends fuel through pipelines. With­out power, fuel ter­mi­nals can’t pump gaso­line onto tanker trucks, and gas sta­tions can’t pump fuel into cus­tomers’ cars.

The Port of New York and New Jer­sey was slowly start­ing to accept tankers, but some cargo was being diverted to the Port of Vir­ginia. Fed­eral require­ments for low-smog gaso­line have been lifted, and fuel trucks are on their way to the area.

Offi­cials said they were work­ing to speed the flow of fuel.

On Fri­day, the Obama admin­is­tra­tion ordered the pur­chase of up to 12 mil­lion gal­lons of unleaded fuel and up to 10 mil­lion gal­lons of diesel fuel for dis­tri­b­u­tion in areas affected by the storm to sup­ple­ment private-sector efforts. It will be trans­ported by tanker trucks to New York, New Jer­sey and other dam­aged communities.

In addi­tion, Home­land Secu­rity Sec­re­tary Janet Napoli­tano tem­porar­ily waived a mar­itime rule to allow for­eign oil tankers com­ing from the Gulf of Mex­ico to enter North­east­ern ports. The action, she said, would “remove a poten­tial obsta­cle to bring­ing addi­tional fuel to the storm-damaged region.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, mean­while, signed an exec­u­tive order waiv­ing the state’s require­ment that fuel tankers reg­is­ter and pay a tax before unloading.

Tankers, he said Fri­day, are now mak­ing “great progress” deliv­er­ing fuel to dis­tri­b­u­tion centers.

“No rea­son to panic,” the gov­er­nor urged.

Bloomberg told reporters Fri­day that the gas-supply issues “are start­ing to be alle­vi­ated” through the tem­po­rary reg­u­la­tory fixes and other devel­op­ments. He noted a plan is in place to ensure that police, fire and other emer­gency vehi­cles have the fuel they need. Buses, includ­ing school buses, are also a priority.

“But the bot­tom line is that the gaso­line sys­tem is get­ting back on its feet,” he said.

Delays due to storms, the mayor added, “have hap­pened before. They spring up very quickly, and they go away very quickly. We basi­cally have a sup­ply sys­tem — as it comes in we use it. If it stops com­ing in, we’re in trouble.”

But keep­ing per­spec­tive could be a chal­lenge as the gas lines lengthened.

Many ser­vice cen­ters along the Gar­den State Park­way and the New Jer­sey Turn­pike were so full that cars try­ing to pass at high­way speeds some­times had to swerve to avoid them.

New Jer­sey planned to move to a gas-rationing sys­tem in 12 coun­ties in the north­ern part of the state.

Gov. Chris Christie ordered the rationing to help ease fuel short­ages and long lines at gas sta­tions. Start­ing at noon Sat­ur­day, res­i­dents with license plates end­ing in an even num­ber will be able to buy gas only on even-numbered days. Those with plates end­ing in an odd num­ber can pur­chase gas on odd-numbered days.

In Con­necti­cut, traf­fic jams cre­ated by New York­ers exit­ing from Inter­state 95 to take advan­tage of the sta­tions that were open were “mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for every­body,” said Green­wich police Lt. Kraig Gray.

Police mon­i­tored lines in many places, includ­ing a Hess sta­tion in Fort Lee, N.J., where an offi­cer was seen order­ing a man out of line after sneak­ing in from a side street.

Among those wait­ing there, Ken­neth Kelly of Engle­wood Cliffs took it all in stride.

“It ain’t that bad. I could be in Queens,” he said, refer­ring to the con­fronta­tions there. “I’ve seen a lot of bad in my life, peo­ple get­ting sick and things like that. This is what I call an incon­ve­nience. Now, los­ing some­thing like a house, that would be bad.”

Posted by AP News on Nov 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.