ULTRA CRAZY: Desperate Brooklynites (above) wait for hours at a Gowanus Hess gas station. In Queens, push nearly comes to shove
Posted on 11/12/2012 8:02:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A Queens gas-station owner says the fuel shortage could be fixed instantly if panicky drivers calmed down and hoarders, profiteers and scammers were stopped. In the two weeks since Hurricane Sandy, he’s been cursed at, spit on and nearly punched in the face by motorists. Fearing reprisals from his supplier, he requested anonymity to relate his experiences from the front lines of the fuel lines to The Post’s Kathianne Boniello.
New Yorkers, stop being stupid.
I’ve never seen such incredible selfishness in my entire life. This fuel shortage is bringing out the worst in people.
At first, I set a $40 limit for customers. I wanted to accommodate everyone if I could. All I’ve gotten for my efforts is two weeks of hell.
There’s been an unbelievable amount of greed, and hoarding, especially with people using gas cans. One person was caught selling a 5-gallon can of gas for $300. I called the police after a family of five kept rotating through the line so they could get around my $40 limit and go make a buck by reselling the fuel themselves.
I started seeing a lot of people bringing Poland Spring bottles and laundry detergent bottles to put gas in. One woman had a watering can. I tried to explain to her that it’s illegal, and unsafe, to put gas in a container like that. All she said was “Why?”
I’ve spent so many hours here, trying to watch over the property, that I’ve lost track of what day it is. One of the first nights, I caught someone with a monkey wrench trying to take apart one of my gas pumps.
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Most of the people waiting for gas at my station don’t even need the fuel. I’ve looked inside most of the vehicles, and I’d say about 70 percent of them have three-quarters or half of a tank of gas. I’ll tell the driver, “There’s no need for you to be here.” They say, “Oh, I just want to top it off,” or “I just want to make sure I have it.”
You just want to make sure you have it? Come on. I don’t think people realize how much gas they’re wasting with all this panic buying. When you sit in your car and idle, and you have the heat going, you actually burn quite a bit of fuel. One gentleman pulled up here in a big Lexus SUV and waited in line, only to yell at me because we had run out of premium gas and didn’t tell him.
One woman needed gas for a trip to Target; another driver was heading to Costco. Somebody said something about needing to go get an iPad.
Meanwhile, lots of first responders are running on empty. I know a lot of police officers have been sleeping in their vehicles and sleeping at the precincts. I don’t think that’s safe for any of us.
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I live in South Jersey and I am dumbfounded at all these people in North Jersey waiting in line for four hours or more for gas when where I live, just an hour to the south, gas is plentiful and at normal prices (well, really at “new normal” Obama era prices, close to $4 a gallon). I get it if you let your tank go to vapors but if you have a gallon or two left in it, you can make it here and gas up all you want.
Can you just imagine what will happen in the big cities when we get hit with an EMP attack? Civility?? Riiiiight.!
And the SRM is . .where?
Stories like this are so few and far between one almost forgets there was Frankenstorm/Cane a couple of weeks ago.
But Katrina? Naw . . . now that was “news”
This has really tested my faith and Christian witness. I have to really make an effort not to laugh out loud in delighted Schadenfreude. Bad. Behave, Mamzelle!
The Free Market is the best device yet conceived by mankind to allocate capital and resources. Better than government, rationing, or any other top-down system.
Period.
It’s all good. Obama won.
Yes, let the prices rise to their balance point and all supply problems are solved.
Coming to a city near you. The slightest disruption will cause this, there is no extra capacity to absorb anything except the most trivial of outages. And disruptions are coming.
When supplies are adequate on average all gas tanks are 1/2 full. As soon as a shortage occurs everyone wants to “top off”, and immediately the desired average goes up to 3/4 full. In other words, demand increases the moment the shortage starts leading to these situations.
The average city has 3 days of food on the shelves....
Your Obama Gov'ment is there to help!
Amazing how we out in the *sticks* are civil and help each other, but in the big cities it’s the law of the jungle.
Surely this a joke. I know the “green”, Earth First environmentally superior N.E. Types HATE the nasty,polluting fossil fuels. Cars are evil-electricity is evil- going NATURAL and DARK is good. They can`t be fighting and scheming For GASOLINE...not to mention participating in EVIL profit making. The N.E. Is the heart of the Obamanation! Could it be that living their symbolic claptrap is more than they can take? I love reports like these after 8 days post-Issac without power in 100degrees. Who knew weather + liberalism could be so entertaining!
This is just a taste of what the “kindly, loving, progressive” democrats in the blue states wil become when their Messiah destroys the economy and food and fuel stop flowing. People in large cities are like rats—keep the food coming and they run around their maze, co-existing peacefully. But disrupt anything and they become animals.
I watched a healthy, young man from Brooklyn whining on FoxNews this morning about how no one is bringing them food. But then he showed us a Red Cross MRE and complained that he burned his hand trying to cook one. So, he’s getting food, but he’s too urban and stupid to cook it. He said that he has a 6 story house and only the basement was destroyed, but he was whining about his neighbors who lost their entire house and being forced into shelters. Overall, he was a sorry excuse for a human being and a man but he thought that the nation owes him and owes him NOW.
From my fellow Incident Management Team members:
1/ “The disorganization and petty infighting here is 10x worse than in the Katrina effort. You wouldn’t believe how bad it is.”
2/ Response offers by non-union electric utility crews are being refused in New Jersey.
Some people have surrendered so much of their freedoms that they cannot make basic decisions and act on those decisions in a crises.
Emergency response cannot address real emergency needs while coming to the aid of those with "compromised comfort".
> When you sit in your car and idle, and you have the heat going, you actually burn quite a bit of fuel.
Stupidity will be the downfall of America.
Sure, the electric fan blowing the (mostly) free warm air from the engine block may cause the alternator to load the engine for a few watts, but I doubt you could measure the difference after burning a tank of fuel.
If it was the AC compressor loading the engine then it’s a different story.
WTF are they teaching in school?
Around 5 years ago, we had an ice storm here in Kansas. After around 4 days without power, I set out to buy a generator where I live (Topeka). I called around, and eeryone was sold out.
One Lowes store was due a delivery though...around 50 generators, but they were all spoken for. They still suggested I show up for the scheduled generator delivery, just in case somebody who had reservedone didn’t show.
I got there, and found around 150 people waiting. When the generators came, it was a near riot. Police were on hand to keep the situation calm (it got especially bad when one guy had reserved 2 generators). Then in a matter of minutes, all the generators were gone, and at least 100 of us were sitting empty handed...and fuming with anger.
Then I had an idea. I walked up to customer service and asked for the numbers to all their Kansas City area stores. A few phone calls later, I had one reserved, and I hit the road for the 60 mile trip for a generator.
It was unreal - if not for the police presence, there would have been fist fights over generators...when there were plenty just an hour away. I never understood why Lowes didn’t shipp all their generators to where the ice storm hit though?
New York could solve the problem over night.
Just allow market prices to prevail.
Enterprising entrepreneurs would take it upon themselves to supply all of the gasoline that the market wanted.
But, nooooooo!!!!!!! That would be gouging!!!!!!! Can’t have any of that. It wouldn’t be faaaaaiiiiirrrr!!!
They have created their own problems.
I have no sympathy for any of them.
I think they mean if you are sitting in line for an hour or more waiting to get gasoline that you will waste a lot of gasoline just sitting there running the engine.
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