9.15- Visit Oriental... Bring your own gasoline

Gas pumps at Oriental's "Town & Country" grocery store bear the effects of hurricane Ike... plastic bags over the pump handles.

If you are coming to Oriental this week, you may want to bring some jerry-cans of gasoline to make sure you can get back home.

Both land-based sources of gasoline in town (Mac's Mini-Mart and Town & Country) have no more gasoline... they have been empty for a few days now.

This is apparently a common sight throughout much of the southern and eastern regions of the U.S., purportedly because of the prophylactic shut-downs of refineries along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana, resulting in about a 20% reduction of the nation's oil refining capacity.

Those stations that do have gasoline have of course been charging higher and higher prices for what is left... In his campaign to enforce NC's anti-price-gouging laws, the NC Governor has already sought 7 subpoenas for gas stations according to an article in today's Raleigh News & Observer. The News & Observer also reports that many school districts are struggling to keep their school buses running.

I have not found out if any of the area marinas with fuel docks have run into similar shortages... but even if they do have gasoline / diesel, marina prices are normally much higher than land-based gas stations, and it is kind of hard to pull your pickup truck up to the pump in Whittaker Creek.

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