Well... at least some of y'all can still get gasoline.
The pumps are drying up here in WNC. We are served by a distribution center that gets its' supply from the pipeline that comes from Louisiana, and it is quickly running out of product.
The .gov of Asheville just held a news conference stating that non-essential services would be limited, but would work to ensure essential services are maintained. They encouraged county & city employees to use comp/vacation/sick time to stay home in order to conserve fuel.
Locally, there have been hordes of people flocking to gas stations all day to fill up while they can. Some stations have already run out of fuel. It's somewhat of a semi-controlled mayhem. Tempers are flaring, traffic is heinous around the stations, some folks have even crashed into each other in their attempt to get to a pump. Though, its' not quite SHTF time, it is a bit disconcerting.
Listening to their radio traffic, local law enforcement is having a tough go of it trying to keep things calm. Just now a station owner had to call for help because of the people trying to force their way onto the station property, even when it was out of gas.
Crazy...
From what we've been told, it'll take about 72 hours to restore power to the pumping station in Louisiana. Once that has been accomplished, it will take another 72 hours for the pipeline to be recharged and for the distribution centers to get a supply of fuel again. So, all in all, they're saying we'll be in this predicament for about a week. However, there are some places that are getting small shipments of fuel from other areas and some have said that only the smaller independant stations will be running out of fuel; that the larger corporate-owned stations will still have a supply available. I think these initial shortages are primarily the result of panic buying.
Hopefully things will settle down and the next few days won't be a continuous repeat of the last few hours.