I mentioned earlier that our area has been out of gas for a week or more, with the Governor ordering gas trucks up in to the mountains this week. I finally was able to fill up one morning, sitting in a gas line on my way to work. My boss was two cars ahead of me. Both of us were on empty. Police are called in to direct traffic at the gas stations and to prevent altercations.

It's been bad since Hurricane Ike hit and it doesn't look good for the next month or so. As a matter of fact, I am stocking up on canned and paper goods and have been discussing emergency measures with a neighbour. I also put two five gallon gas cans in my car in the hopes to fill them up the next time the gas truck rolls in. Apparently the whole south east and parts of the northeast are affected by the low flow (or non flow) of oil through the pipelines. And I'm not too sure that the oil and gas companies will suspend their expected deliveries to force consumers to pay more for less. (I paid $4.30 a gallon cash). They sit in the driver's seat, ....they will be waiting for the rights to drill offshore now that the bailout bill has passed and they may forestall or forgo domestic operations to land lucrative offshore drilling contracts.

Don't say it can't happen here. Interesting statistics <here.>