I NEED GAS!

[Nation03]

I wasn't alive in the 70's so I never had to experience "The Gas Shortage." About 70% of the gas stations are closed in Jersey right now. Lines have been miles long. I left my house today at 5am today, thinking I would be able to catch a break. No such luck. Today at noon they're starting the even/odd days based on your license plates, hope it helps. Guess I'll be getting my workout riding my bike to the shop this week because I'm not waiting 3 hours for gas lol.

[Sbrem]

Sorry you're in the middle of that, at least you can go to work, even if it's on your bike. Good luck, it sure looks like a mess down there. One of my band members has a house on one of the barrier islands, can't get in to see it, and worried sick it's totalled.

Steve

[Binkspot]

I remember as a kid my dad me getting up at 2 am and taking me to the gas station on the Garden State Parkway mp 130. It was the only local station open 24 hrs and even at that hour there would still be maybe 10 cars in front of us. They did the odd and even thing but we like so many others had two sets of plates, just change accordingly. There was rationing also maybe ten gallon limit.

I have family in Jersey, some central the rest along the coast. My mom and dad filled a bunch of cans with gas down here and ran them up yesterday to try and help them out. 

[tpitman]

The oil embargo and lines for gas? It sucked. Went to a Dylan concert down in Hollywood (FL) on a Saturday in early '74. The guy driving the van made the mistake of circling west after the concert to avoid traffic, around Lake Okeechobee instead of east to the turnpike, and we were about out of gas. Stations were all closed (except on the turnpike), but we found a fish camp on the lake that sold us a few gallons that got us back to the turnpike. Crappy end to a crappy concert, as it turned out. It was advertised as not being oversold. We got there and it was in one of those old "sports stadiums" that were nothing but a huge quonset hut, if memory serves me. We were herded in and packed like cattle on an open concrete floor. The sound was terrible. Dylan and The Band. Might as well have been some 5 year olds with plastic ukeleles and bongos as bad as the acoustics. As far back as we were, there was someone on stage that kind of looked like Bob Dylan. From a distance anyway. And to add injury to insult, I had the $h!ts on the return trip . . . no gas shortage there . . . 

[Shawn (EIP)]

Electric powered cars are looking pretty good right now I'm sure.

[Nation03]

I really don't have the right to complain. Compared to south Jersey and NYC (Which is just a few miles from us), we didn't get it bad at all. I'm one of the lucky ones that got power back almost instantly also. My Dad is up in Pennsylvania hunting right now. He'll be back today with about 15 gallons so at least that will hold us over for a little lol.

[bj]

I remember back in 2006 we had a horrible storm that knocked us out of power for two weeks.  Nothing was open, gas stations included.  Grocery stores had to dump anything fresh or frozen and the only thing we could buy was canned food and that was just the ones that were actually open.  By the end of two weeks it was frustrating because we could see lights in the neighboring areas but ours had nothing.  It was right before Christmas so it was cold and after being cold for four days we were able to finally find one of the last hotel rooms available.  We were one of the lucky ones especially since our daughter was only two at the time and to find a hotel room that was actually open yet.  We have no family in this state so it wasn't like we had anyone that could take us in and our friends were in the same boat as us so we all just had to wait it out.
We would take turns going back to the house to check up on everything but for the most part time stopped for two weeks.  So, I didn't go through the damage you guys did but I know what is like for everything to be on hold and just waiting for the electricity to go back on and worried if customers would stick around or not.   We had lost power 6 times that year-I will never forget that year.

[mk162]

If electric cars were that great, we would all be driving them...the actually preceded gas powered cars.

Back to the subject at hand, we had a problem with shortages here in 2008, right when I was getting married.  Lots of guests, no gas and we had to drive all over town.  I would head out at 2 or 3 am to hit the gas stations close to the highway because those had gas, the ones by my house were out.  It was a pain, but at that hour there were no lines.

[inkman996]

It would not be a great thing to own an electric car in any area that power is out. Having a gas car is better, gas is tangible and you can go get it and bring it back. Electiric you cannot, you have no choice but to wait till the power comes back on.

[mk162]

or buy gas to run a generator...once again, something that is in short supply.

[Frog]

Another issue with plug-ins is that rates for electricity can vary regionally  even more than those for gas. I think that the last time I looked, rates for a kwh ran the range of about 6 cents to 20 cents

[inkman996]

One thing no one has ever mentioned about owning an all electric or even a hybrid is the lower middle class or upper poor and the potential for insane electric bills at the end of the month. Lets face it a lot of the working class live from check to check, they buy gasoline as the money is in their pocket, if that went away and they had a large bill at the end of the month instead they probably woiuld get into trouble quickly.

Besides whats the point Electrics are stupid expensive and no matter what they still for the most part draw energy from a source that is not clean, like coal plants or oil.

[ScreenFoo]

At least you have fuel for your bike...

[mk162]

and, the reason gas is hard to get is because the electricity is out as well....they can't run the pumps.

Take some of the generators from the marathon and power a couple gas stations...there is an idea.