Before I complain about gas, lack of it, and selfishness I want to say that today is an historic day . . . my mother not only read my blog but also commented on it!!! I am grinning so big right now my face hurts.
Now to my complaints: The threat of a hurricane raised gas prices all over the country. Because of this there was a run on the gas stations. The stations ran out of gas due to the run and so folks believed the threat to be true. Self fulfilling prophecy. The hurricance was powerful and created a lot of damage but it didn’t affect the gas pipelines like predicted it might. There is a power issue to the pipeline but nothing that needs serious repairs. So why can’t gas get through. Well, gas is getting through to states with lower smog fighting ratings on their gas. Georgia can get gas but has to lower their rating standards to do so. This tells me that there isn’t a gas shortage there is a logistical issue.
So, folks in Atlanta cannot find gas at their local stations. When one station gets a supply there are lines, long lines of people waiting to get their part of the supply. The question is “how much is your part?” With a shortage like this and everybody in the same boat you would like to think folks would be considerate and take what they need but not necessarily all that they could. This is not the case. There are large SUV type vehicles filling up and then filling up gas cans also. There are hybrids filling up when they need less to begin with. Today it took me 45 minutes to travel a road that normal takes 20 minutes to travel with traffic. I assumed there was a wreck ahead that was slowing traffic. NO it was the line trying to get into the gas station that has 2 lanes of traffic closed off.
I want to ride my bike so badly I can hardly stand it but I live 22 miles away from work and that would take around 2 hours for that commute and I would be on 2 major roadways with no bike lanes. I just can’t bring myself to do it. Now I have less than a 1/4 of a tank of gas. If I cannot find some tonight on the way to church or on the way home I may not be able to come to work tomorrow. That is so frustrating. The gas we need exists it isn’t like gas shortages in the 80’s when there was NO gas. We just can’t get what is out there.
The neverending cycle of a station getting gas, folks making a run on the station until it is empty, station sits with no gas for a couple of days and when they get some folks make a run on the station is expected to take 2 weeks minimum to sort itself out. Maybe with all the gas gone there will be fewer folks on the road so it won’t be so dangerous to ride my bike afterall.
