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De brandstoftekorten in Carolina

In het noordwesten van Carolina in de Verenigde Staten stortte de brandstofinfrastructuur in toen de orkaan Gustav begin September over het land raasde. Na enkele dagen was er bij enkele pompstations geen benzine of diesel meer beschikbaar, inmiddels is in het hele gebied maar mondjesmaat benzine en diesel te vinden. De situatie wordt steeds dramatischer. Er is continue politiebewaking om te voorkomen dat er grootschalige brandstofrellen uitbreken. Via ons internationale netwerk ontvingen we het onderstaande ooggetuigenverslag waaruit duidelijk wordt hoe Amerikanen reageren in een crisissituatie, met geweld.

On the day Gustav hit Texas, we were all shocked when within hours the price of gasoline, on average, jumped at least sixty cents per gallon at the pump. Within three days the first outages began to occur, starting with the small independent convenience store owners. By the end of the week the major chains Exxon, Shell, etc., began to run out of gas as well.

It started what I would call a cascading effect. No great concern the first few days other than filling up before the price jumped higher, and then increasing anxiety, especially when the major distributors could not get gas. Now people are panic buying, just pulling into a line if they see a station has gas, no matter how long the wait. As to an explanation, no one is giving a straight answer, from the governor, across the various wholesalers, various government officials, other than the fact that the temporary interruption of the primary pipeline out of Texas, set off a chain reaction. My personal observation. It is a clear demonstration of just how fragile the infrastructure truly is. There is no longer any built in redundancy and but a few days interruption of supply creates a “cascading effect” or echo that reverberates across the entire system.

By the beginning of this week there was an air of near panic. Without exaggeration I saw lines a quarter mile long, with wait times up to four hours. If a gas station received a supply, which at the moment is just regular only, no matter what the price, a line forms. I’ve heard accounts of lines of cars following a tanker truck if they thought it was heading to a nearby delivery. One of my neighbors got up at midnight when a friend tipped her off that a gas shipment was due to arrive at a local convenience store. By the time she arrived the wait was already two hours and by the time she finally got gas, the police were telling people at the end of the line to just go home, the supply was running out.
One of my students actually faced an altercation with someone who cut into line and then threatened him with a knife. Another student working in a convenience store said there have been shoving matches and brawls, especially when they have to announce that the supply is running out and people start arguing with each other about who should get what is left.

At many stations you now see a police presence not just to direct traffic but to insure that fighting does not break out, especially when the supply begins to run out. Another student told me about a large RV pulling into a line and an angry crowd threatened him if he stayed. . .he quickly left. I’ve seen people pulling out three and four, five gallon containers to fill up as well, and now you can not find a single one for sale anywhere in the region. Some stations are now putting twenty or thirty dollar limits on purchases because of angry protests, and in turn this limit triggers protests as well. I’ve learned to drive with extreme caution when anywhere near a gas line. I came within a hairsbreath of a serious accident today as some woman just dodged across a four lane road, directly in front of me, (I had to swerve across a double yellow line to avoid ramming into her and fortunately there was no oncoming traffic) as she cut into a station ahead of a line. It was surreal, some guy on a cellphone who was obviously talking with her was actually out of his car, blocking the cars behind him and waving her on in. I managed to dodge around her and suspect a fight was definitely brewing since other people were getting out of their cars to protest. I didn’t stop to offer my opinion of her driving. . . I figured the mob would take care of that.

The secondary impact is hitting now. Some schools including our community college have closed, the early autumn tourist trade is absolutely dead. No one has a clear answer as to when this will actually clear up, the county sheriff is predicting sometime in early October. This is far worst than anything I saw during the oil crunches of the 1970s & 80s.

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