I Went to My Local Dealer to See If He Could Set Me Straight, He Said There's a Little Gas Going But I'd Have to Wait

Jesse Walker | September 3, 2005

As a telecommuter, I don't need to buy fuel as often as most people do. So when I discovered last night that it cost nearly $60 to fill up my Camry, I thought to myself, "I knew gas was expensive, but I didn't realize it had gotten this expensive. I guess it's gotten worse since Katrina."

Turns out that more than that was at work. Here's the Baltimore Sun's William Wan:

The panic, traffic jams, depleted gas stations and angry crowds -- it all began yesterday, as these things often do, with a whopper of a tall tale.

The rumor was this: Because of shortages, all Maryland gas stations would be shut down at 4 p.m. yesterday afternoon until after the Labor Day weekend.

But as word spread, what began as a rumor transformed reality. Panicked drivers rushed to the pump in droves, exhausting supplies, closing some stations and sending prices soaring at many of those remaining open....

The Baltimore mayor's office fielded calls all day from worried residents. City police posted officers at stations with the longest lines. The governor held a news conference to urge calm among consumers.

One station, with its fuel disappearing and its distributor unable to resupply it anytime soon, raised its prices to $4.97 a gallon for regular and $7.03 for super. It still ran out of regular. Its owner also says that someone posing as a government official called her to relay the alleged shutdown order.

A similar panic plagued Virginia as well, and Wan reports that "gas-related rumors have also hit other parts of the East Coast and Florida."

Comments

|9.3.05 @ 12:59PM|#

Willie the Pimp?

|9.3.05 @ 1:01PM|#

Crabtown's freaky; here in Rockville there's two stations near me, reg. around $3.50, and no real lines to speak of.

Walk right past 'em on my way to the bank.

bill|9.3.05 @ 1:12PM|#

Ha! Copycats! Down here in Atlanta, we had the exact same freakout on Wednesday - rumors of gas stations at 4pm, no gas for the weekend. Some stations were charging as much as $5-6/gallon before the governor froze the prices. By Thursday afternoon prices were almost back to prepanic levels.

As I never received the "OHMYGOD WEREALLGOING TODIE!!!" memo, it was odd driving home and trying to navigate the lines clogging the roads.

Uncle Sam|9.3.05 @ 1:13PM|#

Anyone remember the toilet paper shortage?

|9.3.05 @ 1:26PM|#

Yeah, go ahead and believe FEMA's Bayou Bob when he says everything's gonna be OK.

|9.3.05 @ 1:29PM|#

About the thread title, The Real Me?

|9.3.05 @ 1:34PM|#

Gas is still $3 a gallon here in CA. Wonder how long that'll last. I'm so used to having the absolute highest prices in the country that it feels really out of whack to hear about all these prices out there.

Ron Hardin|9.3.05 @ 1:38PM|#

There's nothing like $10 gas to scotch action on a rumor that gas is running out.

Yesterday somebody complained that the only stations still with gas were charging really high prices. No kidding, Sherlock.

Phil|9.3.05 @ 1:55PM|#

I didn't see any panic here in Virginia, either last night or today. Gas at my local Exxon in Fairfax is $3.15/$3.25/$3.35, and there appears to be plenty; a couple of Super pump handles had bags over them, but that's it.

Jesse Walker|9.3.05 @ 2:08PM|#

About the thread title, The Real Me?

No, it's from a Kinks song. "Gallon of Gas."

|9.3.05 @ 2:58PM|#

I saw 3.49 at one place in Richmond but that's it.....maybe I should go fill my tank to help get panic going. It's been kinda dull here.

|9.3.05 @ 3:23PM|#

In Seattle, gas has been fine. But there was a tire-air panic nearby. Bikes were lined up for blocks waiting to get to the hose. People throwing Clif Bars and Vitamin Waters at each other, mothers squeezing air out of their babies into the tires. . it was scary.

|9.3.05 @ 4:01PM|#

sidereal wins the thread.

|9.3.05 @ 4:53PM|#

"I didn't see any panic here in Virginia, either last night or today. Gas at my local Exxon in Fairfax is $3.15/$3.25/$3.35, and there appears to be plenty; a couple of Super pump handles had bags over them, but that's it."
At my local station in Arlington, it's up to $3.50 for premium, compared to $2.85 or so at the start of the week (which was bad enough).

There were some semi-panics on Wednesday night around here, or at least lots of people buying gas at once, but I think that was because everyone assumed that prices were going to go up. Funnily enough, prices rose dramatically after the surge in demand...

Not seen any shortages of either gas or compressed air around here, though.

|9.3.05 @ 4:57PM|#

Right after 9/11 I watched a guy fill with gasoline a plastic trash can in the bed of his pickup truck. Brilliant! If you must panic, use a steel drum. Please.

James B.|9.3.05 @ 6:36PM|#

Yesterday in Chadds Ford PA the Sunoco had its cheapest grade at $3.99 and nobody was filling up. Other stations in the area were in the $3.29-$3.49 range. This morning the Sunoco had dropped it price a full 50 cents to $3.49

|9.3.05 @ 8:03PM|#

Just a preview of what will happen when the politicians start to impose those "common sense" price ceilings on wholesale gasoline sales.

fyodor|9.4.05 @ 10:08AM|#

when I discovered last night that it cost nearly $60 to fill up my Camry, I thought to myself, "I knew gas was expensive, but I didn't realize it had gotten this expensive

Maybe it's just me, but I'm always a little baffled when people reflect their understanding of gas prices by how much it costs to fill up. No offense, Jesse, but there are these great big signs at the gas station, and they tell you exactly what each and every gallon costs! To the tenth of a penny! :-)

what began as a rumor transformed reality

That's hardly a new or unique phenomenon. There's several hundred to a thousand Iraqi Shiites who could tell you about the transformative power of rumor. If, of course, they could only tell you anything at all.

Just a preview of what will happen when the politicians start to impose those "common sense" price ceilings on wholesale gasoline sales.

Good point. Sometimes forces other than government coercion can create the same dynamics as government coercion. I think that's why you see so much criticism of religion on H&R. Sure, from a legal standpoint religion is purely voluntary, and the law should damn well leave it that way. But at the same time, the desire to control people and the threat of everlasting punishment and the appeal to authority that all mark most religions make them very similar to government in their effect on people. That's also why I take issue with those here who would say, "While it should be perfectly legal to charge whatever you like in an emergency situation, we should also make it perfectly clear that those who do charge more than normal are very, very bad people! Okay, says the business owner, instead of charging twice the normal price and being a very, very bad person, guess I just won't open up the shop at all and tend to that tree that fell across my front door instead. It's good not to arrest so-called price gougers, but better still not to try to make them feel like scum. Y'know, given the circumstances, you might just do the same damn thing.

|9.4.05 @ 11:37AM|#

The panic, traffic jams, depleted gas stations and angry crowds -- it all began yesterday, as these things often do, with a whopper of a tall tale.

Its owner also says that someone posing as a government official called her to relay the alleged shutdown order.

A similar panic plagued Virginia as well...

Hmmm, rumors causing even more shortages, longer lines, higher prices, & Bush disgruntlement--has the left finally discovered their own Karl Rove?