Saturday, September 20, 2008

Y'all Need to Calm Down

I knew that we had been affected by Hurricane Ike from a gas perspective, but I had no idea how bad it had gotten until I went to the gas station yesterday. Well, at least I tried to get gas. The first 10 gas stations had no gas. At all. I was on Empty and starting to get a little worried. I called my boss in Philadelphia and asked her if there was a gas shortage up there. There was silence on the line for a good 5 five seconds before she asked me what the heck I was talking about. All week long, there were gas stations out of gas, but they would be back in business the next day. This was getting weirder by the minute. I finally drove to Cool Springs and found a gas station with gas. And about 100 cars were wrapped around it. In addition, two news helicopters were flying around it, nearly crashing into each other. It was CAAARRRAAZZZY!

I waited for an hour, prayed I wouldn't run out before I got to the pump, got my gas, and went about my day. I told Corey about it later and was met with a look of disbelief.

This morning, we turned on the news and saw this. We drove to the farmers' market and saw that Costo was the only place that had gas. There were HUNDREDS of cars waiting for gas. According to the news reports we saw this morning, people all over Nashville had gotten up at 2:00AM thinking they could get some gas. They were met with enormous lines also.

Apparently this nonsense on Friday started with a rumor--a rumor that Nashville was going to run out of gas. People started to panic. Reactionary crazy people who didn't actually NEED gas created massive lines in order to top off their cars, causing undue inconvenience and suffering for those who actually need it. I am defining that any one who has less than a quarter of a tank needs gas. Many of the people in my neighborhood are on "E."

Unfortunately for Corey, he is nearly out of gas, so he is going to drive my car to work this week until things calm down. We're not going to drive to Paducah tomorrow so that we can save our gas. It stinks, but it is what it is. According to the news, everything should be back to normal by Tuesday or so.

Based on the reactions of the people around here, I pray that this never becomes a way of life. We will be in huge trouble if it does. We as a nation are clearly unprepared and unwilling to change our lives.

3 comments:

kimmyk said...

that is insane.

absolutely insane.

Anonymous said...

ERRRGGGG!!! This gas business is making me ill! It's brutal. This is the kind of situation where we'd be so much better off without the media hype. It only seems to make things worse.

Arwen said...

Asheville is out of gas too. I got gas last Friday and my husband went by 10 places today and there was no gas anywhere. I think we share the same pipeline. It's nuts.