Motorists fuming over continuing gas shortages

A sign of the times at a pump on West Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta on Sept 28, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Gas lines were long and patience short across Atlanta over the weekend – that is, when there was gas to be had at all. Dave Bender drove from midtown to Marietta, and spoke with motorists at stations along the way.

“It’s crazy – there’s no gas anywhere; North Carolina through Texas…”

That’s Brian, a motorist from New Mexico who’s driving across the southeast.

But right he’s sitting at a station with empty gas pumps on West Paces Ferry Road. That’s a scene echoed throughout the metro Atlanta area.

“…they’ll let you have ten bucks of gas at some places; there’s a lot of this: ‘Sorry – we’re out of gas – you can see the sign’s right there.’”

Suppliers say that’s because they’re still struggling to get enough fuel to gas stations, from Gulf Coast refineries hit by hurricanes weeks ago.

One of the few stations that is open this Sunday afternoon is in Marietta.

Some 200 motorists lining up at a Kroger gas station in Marietta, Ga., on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2008. (Dave Bender)

And station clerk Joel Freley, says the fill-up swarm is keeping his register spinning:

“I made over almost $2,000 in three hours.”

Some 200 vehicles are idling in several lines to get to his eight pump islands – with more desperate drivers pulling in all the time.

One of them is Margaret Batts, who’s hoping to reach the pumps before they shut down for the day:

“Now they only have 400 gallons, so there’s no guarantee I’m even going to get any.”

James Cook of Marietta is sitting ten cars in front of her:

"I have a [Ford] Explorer, this gas tank, and a two gallon gas tank -- yeah, and I don't care what anybody's got to say about it."

Cook almost lost his cool when he thought the car in front of him had drained the last drop:

“He said the tank was outta’ gas, and I’ve been sitting here forever – driving around for three hours looking for gas. I would have flipped out if that was the case.”

Suppliers and state officials are telling drivers like Cook to be patient: it’ll likely take a few more weeks before fuel supplies are replenished.

Lining up at the pump in Marietta, on Sunday, Sept., 28, 2008. (Dave Bender)

Click here for more GPB News coverage of the gas shortage.

Atlanta: Pain at the pump

Motorist fills up Hummer at a station in midtown Atlanta. (file/Dave Bender)

Gas stations in parts of Georgia and the South continue to run out fuel as worried drivers keep filling their tanks. The problem is especially bad in Atlanta.

It’s a hit and miss situation in Atlanta for people who need gas. Long lines form as soon as a station gets a delivery and empties out within hours. Eric Rockcliff who has a Ford Expedition stays in close contact with friends these days:

“I set my alarm to 2:45 am and headed out look for gas. “

Rockcliff got up at 3 am one night and found gas in his neighborhood. Through networking and texting with friends he knew that QT stations were likely to have gas:

“The one closest to my house, even at 3 am line down the street in both directions.”

Rockcliff knew of another QT down the street and got lucky… no lines.

This hit and miss situation, officials say, is caused by a shortage of supply from gulf refineries still reeling from hurricane shut downs. They warn it could be a couple of weeks before things are back to normal.

Officials blame slow supply from gulf refineries still working to get up to full capacity after 2 hurricanes this season.

Click here for more GPB News reports about the gas crisis.

Gas supplies limited

When it comes to filling up with gas these days it's a mixed bag. People in some parts of the state have ample supplies, while others are waiting in line to fill up their tanks, In some cases stations are running out.

People in Georgia get their gas from different places. Gas in Savannah comes in at the port, while gas in places like Macon, Augusta, and Atlanta comes from pipelines. Those pipelines are fed by refineries in Louisiana and Texas. Some refineries remain shut down in the wake of two recent hurricanes.

Refineries should come back on line over the next few weeks, but for now supplies are tight. Jim Tudor is with the Georgia Association of Convenience Stores. He says consumers can help by not topping off their tanks.

"If you have three-quarters of a tank of gas, and you pass three gas stations and you automatically feel the need that you've got to go fill up that quarter of a tank just to feel better, that creates real challenges in the marketplace because it's never been designed that everybody can go around with a full tank of gas."

The state is trying to help out by allowing more fuel to be brought in to Atlanta, increasing the number of hour's gas haulers can be on the road, and allowing them to deliver heavier loads.

Keys residents weigh evacuation, Gulf Coast next?

NOAA satellite photo of Hurricane Ike, Sunday afternoon. Click on the image for the latest National Weather Service reports.

With powerful Hurricane Ike still hundreds of miles away and on an uncertain course, residents on these low-lying islands weighed evacuation orders Sunday, perhaps a hint that Gulf Coast residents as far away as Texas and New Orleans may not heed similar calls to leave.

Sunday's forecast had Ike crossing Cuba and headed into the Gulf of Mexico later this week. The Florida Keys were in an uncertain position, and Gulf Coast states even more so. In Texas and Louisiana, where people were just returning from the mass evacuation for a weaker-than-expected Gustav, officials already acknowledged that it may be difficult to get people mobilized again.

In Key West, many residents have their own formula for determining whether to leave. Even though evacuation orders became mandatory Sunday, traffic out of Key West was busy but not jammed.

Mike Tilson, 24, was in wait-and-see mode Sunday, stocking up his Key West houseboat with supplies.

"I got tarps and champagne," he said as he pushed a wheelbarrow of supplies including Heineken beer, ice and a loaf of bread down the dock.

He said if the storm tracks north of Cuba, he'd evacuate. Otherwise, he won't leave even if Key West is expecting a Category 3 (winds of 111-130 mph). "It's just a good party. I'll stay."

At 2 p.m. EDT Sunday, Ike was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 135 mph, moving west at 13 mph. Hurricane force winds stretched 60 miles from the center. It was forecast to track over Cuba, re-emerging over the island's western coast Tuesday morning about 100 miles south of Key West as a Category 1.

Though forecasts suggested the storm was headed into the Gulf, historically, most major storms passing by Ike's position had curved northward. If it gets into the Gulf, it could head anywhere from Texas to the Florida Panhandle, and it likely would strengthen again.

President Bush declared a state of emergency for Florida because of Ike on Sunday and ordered federal money to supplement state and local response efforts.

More than 60 residents and nearly 90 people from a homeless shelter had arrived at a shelter at Florida International University in Miami by afternoon, but many others said they wanted to see what the storm does over Cuba and possibly reassess on Monday.

Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson had a warning for people not wanting to evacuate the area. He said anyone who thinks staying through a major hurricane is "champagne time is someone who hasn't thought it through clearly." He said emergency vehicles would be pulled off the road if the area gets tropical storm force winds.

McPherson said 15,000 tourists had already evacuated the region, and the Key West airport was set to close at 7 p.m. Sunday. Passengers bound for Key West from the Miami International Airport were being asked to show identification proving they lived there and only residents were being allowed on Key Westbound flights.

Among those planning to stay in the United States' southernmost city were Claudia Pennington, 61, director of the Key West Art and Historical Society, who said she's staying to care for the group's three buildings and their contents. Don Guess, 50, was putting up plywood on a friend's house Sunday and said he was sticking around because the storm didn't worry him.

(The Associated Press)

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U.S. Coast Guard battens down Ga. ports awaiting Hanna

This NOAA graphic shows the expected five-day storm path of tropical storm Hanna on Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. Click graphic for larger image.

The U.S. Coast Guard has closed the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to inbound vessels because of Tropical Storm Hanna.

This infrared satellite image provided by the NOAA show tropical storm Hanna moving over the Bahamas on Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. Click photo for larger image.

The National Weather Service issued tropical storm warnings Friday for the East Coast from Georgia to Virginia. The storm's center was expected to make landfall along the coast of the Carolinas early Saturday morning.

The Coast Guard said in a news release Friday that the ports will be assessed after the storm has passed to determine whether it's safe for traffic to resume.

In South Carolina, the State Ports Authority plans to close the Port of Charleston to land traffic at noon Friday. The Coast Guard has urged all vessels and barges weighing more than 500 gross tons to leave as soon as possible.

This NOAA image shows tropical storm Hanna heading toward the Atlantic coast and hurricane Ike churning further east over the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, Sept. 5, 2008. Click photo for larger image.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of hurricane season.

(The Associated Press)

Airline business hit by Gustav

The airline industry took a hit from Hurricane Gustav this Labor Day weekend. By disrupting travel to and from the Gulf Coast, the airlines didn’t get critical holiday revenue. Airtran Airlines canceled 23 flights, Delta Airlines 21. Flights could resume to Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport in Mississippi today. It’s unclear when flights will resume to Armstrong New Orleans International.

Georgia Power helps with Gustav

Georgia Power crews are on the way to help affected areas of the Gulf Coast from the punch of Hurricane ‘Gustav’. A company spokesperson says crews are on the road to Tallahassee and Meridian-Mississippi to mobilize their efforts and be ready to respond. 740 Georgia Power workers will be based out of Meridian, with another 75 to base out of the Tallahassee location.

Louisiana residents in GA. weighing when to return

About five hundred of the evacuees from Hurricane Gustav are waiting out the hurricane in Georgia. Some three hundred of them are being hosted at Villa Rica, not far from the Alabama state line.

Red Cross and local volunteers here are providing cots, hot meals and showers for the displaced families.

The exhausted evacuees, many of with them children and elderly family members, are taking shelter in a gym and meeting rooms at a local recreation center.

One of them is Kenner, Louisiana, resident Nolan Eugene, who arrived in a convoy with friends:

"Everybody runnin' from that hurricane, but it done now passed over now, and I'm ready to get back home (laughs). We could leave out tonight, instead of spending another night here – I don't know… six carloads of us got to make a decision."

Villa Rica is one of five shelters the Red Cross has opened statewide including Columbus, La Grange, Lawrenceville and Tift County.

Click here for more GPB News coverage or Hurricane Gustav.

Evacuees waiting out Gustav in Ga.

About five hundred of the evacuees from Hurricane Gustav have taken refuge in Georgia. Some three hundred of them are being hosted at Villa Rica, west of Atlanta.

Many of the evacuees arrived at the center, not far from the Alabama state line, in convoys after an all-night drive.

Lisa Matheson of the Red Cross says they’re sheltering them in a gym at a local recreation center:

“This is where we have approximately 250 cots set up to take in the evacuees. We were very fortunate in this shelter, that we had several ancillary rooms where we could take the overflow to accommodate the nearly 300 people who are here.”

The evacuees are being given three meals a day, recreation facilities and medical assistance is they need it.

Villa Rica is one of six shelters the Red Cross has opened statewide, including Columbus, Dalton, La Grange, Lawrenceville and Tift County.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of Hurricane Gustav, and other severe weather.

Georgia has eye on 'Hanna'

With most eyes on the movement of Hurricane Gustav to the Gulf Coast this morning, officials in Georgia are keeping a focus on tropical storm Hanna in the Atlantic. That storm is currently east of the Bahamas, but could threaten our state late in the week. One forecast track has Hanna heading toward the Georgia coast and Savannah on Friday, but other models have the storm hitting anywhere from the Florida coast, up to the Carolinas.

As always, stay tuned to GPB for all the latest as the week moves along.

The Gulf Coast waits: Will it be another Katrina?

(NOAA report)

With a historic evacuation complete, and gun-toting police and National Guardsmen standing watch over this city's empty streets, even presidential politics stood still Sunday while the nation waited to see if Hurricane Gustav would be another Katrina.

The storm was set to crash ashore midday Monday with frightful force, testing the three years of planning and rebuilding that followed Katrina's devastating blow to the Gulf Coast.

Painfully aware of the failings that led to that horrific suffering and more than 1,600 deaths, this time, officials moved beyond merely insisting tourists and residents leave south Louisiana. They threatened arrest, loaded thousands onto buses and warned that anyone who remained behind would not be rescued.

"Looters will go directly to jail. You will not get a pass this time," Mayor Ray Nagin said. "You will not have a temporary stay in the city. You will go directly to the Big House."

Col. Mike Edmondson, state police commander, said he believed that 90 percent of the population had fled the Louisiana coast. The exodus of 1.9 million people is the largest evacuation in state history, and thousands more had left from Mississippi, Alabama and flood-prone southeast Texas.

Louisiana and Mississippi changed traffic flow so all highway lanes led away from the coast, and cars were packed bumper-to-bumper. Stores and restaurants shut down, hotels closed and windows were boarded up. Some who planned to stay changed their mind at the last second, not willing to risk the worst.

"I was trying to get situated at home. I was trying to get things so it would be halfway safe," said 46-year-old painter Jerry Williams, who showed up at the city's Union Station to catch one of the last buses out of town. "You're torn. Do you leave it and worry about it, or do you stay and worry about living?"

Click here for GPB News coverage of Georgia's plans for assisting evacuees.

Forecasters said Gustav was likely to grow stronger as it marched toward the coast with top sustained winds of around 115 mph. At 5 p.m. EDT Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said Gustav was a Category 3 storm centered about 215 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and moving northwest near 18 mph.

Against all warnings, some gambled and decided to face its wrath. On an otherwise deserted commercial block of downtown Lafayette, about 135 miles west of the city, Tim Schooler removed the awnings from his photography studio. He thought about evacuating Sunday before decided he was better off riding out the storm at home with his wife, Nona.

"There's really no place to go. All the hotels are booked up to Little Rock and beyond," he said. "We're just hoping for the best."

There were frightening comparisons between Gustav and Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of New Orleans when storm surge overtook the levees. While Gustav isn't as large as Katrina, which was a massive Category 5 storm at roughly the same place in the Gulf, there was no doubt the storm posed a major threat to a partially rebuilt New Orleans and the flood-prone coasts of Louisiana and southeast Texas. The storm has already killed at least 94 people on its path through the Caribbean.

(The Associated Press)

Click here for more GPB News coverage of Hurricane Gustav, and other recent stormy weather.

Fort Benning, Columbus ready for Gustav's brunt

Fort Benning is mobilizing to support evacuation and medical efforts for storm-hit areas.

The Department of Defense has placed the infantry training base, along with five others in the southeas Federal Emergency Management Agency logistics staging areas for supplies and equipment.

Nearby, the Columbus branch of the American Red Cross says they have opened an emergency center for evacuees fleeing areas expecting to be hit by Hurricane Gustav sometime Monday.

The center is located at the Calvary Christian School on 7556 Old Moon Road.

Across the Chattahoochee River in Alabama, Russell County is also preparing, and has designated Chattahoochee Valley Community College in Phenix City as an emergency evacuation center.

Click here for more GPB News coverage on Hurricane Gustav.

Hurricane Gustav evacuees begin arriving in Ga. (updated)

NOAA infrared satellite image of Hurricane Gustav over the central Gulf of Mexico.

Georgia officials are readying plans to accept several thousand evacuees, if necessary from states that may be hit by Hurricane Gustav in the next several days.

Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman Buzz Weiss says two emergency shelters were opened Sunday afternoon:

"We opened, in collaboration with the Red Cross, two shelters: one in Villa Rica, the other in La Grange. As of last night, we had about 67 people in the Villa Rica facility, with a capacity of about 250; we had about 60 people in the La Grange shelter, with a capacity of about 500."

Weiss says say traffic on interstate highways I-20 and I-85 into Georgia from Alabama has risen significantly as of Sunday afternoon.

The Georgia Highway Patrol says over half of the license tags were from Louisiana and Mississippi.

Weiss says GEMA is closely monitoring the situation:

“…and as the need develops, we will look at the need to open additional shelters along the I-20 and I-85 corridor”

The hurricane is expected to make landfall Monday morning.

Metro Atlanta hotels and motels say they're renting rooms to self-evacuees from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.

NASA visual satellite image of Hurricane Gustav over the central Gulf of Mexico.

Click here for updated NWS radar and satellite maps of the New Orleans area.

Click here for more GPB News coverage of recent hurricane activity in Gulf of Mexico.