NYC gas shortages

[zandperl]

My father's baffled by the gas shortage in NYC, so I cobbled together my best explanation of why, revised below.

1. Right after the storm, early last week: NY Harbor closed to tankers. Some gas stations had no power so there was less gas to go around. There's a gasoline pipeline into NYC, which may have been barely enough to meet the demand at

Comments

[seekingferret]

My understanding was that power to gas stations was a bigger problem than actual supply. Those stations that did have the ability to pump gas ran out quicker than their scheduled deliveries expected, but it wasn't that the actual supply was particularly low.

Certainly I think panic buying was part of it, but I don't think it was panic buying in the sense of fear that the city was going to descend into anarchy. People were just worried that they would end up stranded somewhere without gas. I spoke to co-workers with relatively long commutes, and they said that they have been constantly worrying if they got to a quarter tank left that they may not be able to find a place to refill, so they went in to refill at a higher level than they normally would. Of course, this means more frequent refillings at lower quantities, but doesn't help the problem of gas lines.

[zandperl]

My understanding was that power to gas stations was a bigger problem than actual supply.

I agree that was true in the first few days, but at this point most gas stations have had power restored, and yet there's still a huge gas shortage problem.

[seekingferret]

Huh... around here, the lines have been gone for about two or three days, and disappeared basically as soon as power was restored to all the gas stations.

Looking into it more, it seems that the major missing factor now is the lost refinery capacity. Once reserves were depleted, there's going to be a supply shortfall until they're all brought back online.

[zandperl]

Yeah, from what I hear gas lines in Manhattan and parts of Queens (at least Flushing/Whitestone/Bayside) are bad. I mean, things have got to be bad somewhere since Cuomo declared odd/even gas rationing.

If there's a bunch of refineries in NJ which aren't producing, that would flesh out my picture of what's going on and help explain the continued shortages.

[blahblahboy]

Currently you need a cop to check plates in order for the gas station to be allowed to pump. Also in this area I think there's a disproportionate number of drivers due to the lack of good transit options.

Beyond that, most stations here are fairly small (have 2-4 pumps) and thus throughput is much slower, and thus people waste more gas on line waiting and thus have to refuel more frequently. This of course may only be a second order effect.

The area has a lot of SUVs too for all the kids = greater gas tank capacity = longer wait times.

Honestly I'm as confused as you are about why the area is so bad. I can see maybe out in Long Island there was a lot of homes with no electricity so people were queuing up with gas buckets and filling those too to power their generators.

One other thing that's ridiculous here; some stations have limits on how muh gas you can buy at their inflated prices. Others are cash only. This can only exacerbate the wait time.

[zandperl]

It sounds like the supply is really bad due to refineries in NJ being closed - my understanding now is that NYC harbor is open, the ships come in with crude oil, the crude oil usually goes to NJ to be refined, then comes back to NYC to the gas stations.

Are the cops able to figure out that zero is even? I read stories of the gas rationing in the 70s and cops didn't know if zero was even or odd.

Are cops and patrons being nice about things, or are tempers flaring?