Post-Sandy: A quick first person report
Late Sunday afternoon I drove from Perth-Amboy, New Jersey to New London, Connecticut. It was an interesting trip. On a roughly five mile stretch of primary road in New Jersey I saw at least 16 gas stations. Two were open for business. I think one other was “open” but not pumping gas. Most had orange cones or tape showing they were closed.
Significantly, there was electricity. One of the non-operating stations had an idled generator sitting out front. This suggests the stations had exhausted their gasoline supplies and had not been (could not be) resupplied. This was despite being within about 20 miles of the largest concentration of gasoline supply on the East Coast.
I took the picture above at a Connecticut service area just off I-95 a bit west of Bridgeport. The line was about twice as long as the picture shows. I would have had to hike into the Interstate lanes to actually get the whole queue (and you would not have been able to see the pump-canopy). I had 3/4s of a tank left which easily got me to New London. By New Haven there seemed to be plenty of gas.
When the picture was taken it had been six days since Sandy roared ashore. Despite the pictures — and a couple more days to catch-up — I think the fuel situation is close-to-being fixed. Replacement housing will be even harder to “fix”. Much, much more difficult. Wickedly hard.
