OT: us-ians...who is unable to purchase gas in their...

[ryan roopnarine]

non-hurricane affected area? this is not meant to be disrespectful to others that might actually be suffering right now, of course.

i live in tallahassee, the state capital of florida. thursday, most places had gas for between 3.59-3.79. on friday, i was able to buy regular unleaded for the jacked up price of 3.79. most stations were out of this, and were selling premium only at about 4.09 a gallon (us gallon). my roommate and i drove to orlando (about 240 miles SE of here). they were running out of regular friday, but resupply was occuring, and 1/2 of stations had regular at about 3.79.

i refilled with regular at 3.79 this afternoon. as we drove north, we noticed the pecuilar sight of diesel being equal or lesser in price to regular unleaded. i saw one truck stop with regular for 4.39, diesel being about 4.13.

we pull into tallahassee and observe that gas stations no longer have prices in their signs. one or two have diesel prices remaining. my other roommate told me that by friday, gas was going for about 5.00, and that nowhere had any, anymore. i suspect that because this city is the gov-mint seat for the state, the forecasting folks had let some info leak a day or two early, and that everyone with legislator plates had been "serviced" by thursday. the governor made an announcement, telling people to stop buying the stuff unnecessarily on friday. though i'm probably wrong.

we're pretty far away from the mess. anyone else?

[ryan roopnarine]

more:

Attorney General Bill McCollum will subpoena records of four gas retailers as gouging complaints continue even with fuel supplies remaining good in the state.

McCollum said on Sunday he wanted proof the four chains -- Flying J, Pilot Travel Centers, Valero and Dodge's Stores -- were passing along legitimate costs to customers with high gas prices.

Even with the high prices McCollum said were largely limited to those outlets, he cleared one Tallahassee station and said shortages in the state's capital were cause by irrational runs by consumers.

"In Leon County there was a run on gas, probably artificial," McCollum said. "Consequently, in that town, there are stations literally out of gas and there's no reason for that. There is not an actual gasoline shortage in our state. There's no reason for anybody to panic."

[attack eagle]

I paid less when I filled up on saturday than I have in many months :)

And i'm IN texas.

[repenttokyo]

yes, gas up here mass / nh is cheaper than it has been recently - although Vermont has been expensive, 3.89 for regular.

[ryan roopnarine]

yaayyyy...the little bootleg gas station by my house just ran out of gas. i wonder what possible explanation could be offered as to why a major metropolitan area with no severe weather could not be replenished in 4 days time. the diesel numbers are coming down too...i get a chance to see these things riding the bus everywhere. if this isn't fixed by thursday or friday i could see them shutting down the schools and whatnot.

[Jon K]

Sister went to get gas in NC (Goes to Wakeforest) and called me saying the stations had NO gas. I think they use the gulf area for their supply and the gulf refineries shut down preemptively for the hurricanes (both) and that may be hurting their supply... I think.

[Elekta]

If they can't get it into the pipeline, they can't pump it up to jersey to the tank farms for distribution. there are at least three direct lines from Texas City refineries to New Jersey

[ryan roopnarine]

still no gas today. there are gas stations with gas, i just don't want to drive 4-10 miles on the 2-3 remaining gallons i have left only to find out that a particular station has just ran out.

on that note, i was passing by a nearby gas station at about 9.45pm tonight. i guess some fcuktards decided to rob a BP, as i saw the police blocking off the street entrances and a K9 tahoe parked in front of it. i guess they thought it would be advantageous to them to rob a store with no customers and no real cash in it?

[Tiger]

Can't believe it... gas station with no gas! In modern time... unbelievable.

[repenttokyo]

Can't believe it... gas station with no gas! In modern time... unbelievable.

sometimes one of the stations near me runs out of premium - bad management, I suppose.

[ryan roopnarine]

none of the major stations here (BP, shell, &c.) have refilled yet. i guess they don't want to have to sell off 4.05/gallon gas if they don't have to. the little bootleg station by my apartment got replenished at 4.08 per. it is crazy, this is a big @ss town, and all the stations have their gas and diesel numbers taken out. its post-apocalyptic in its own way:D

ps, just so no one thinks that this is a little hole in the wall place
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallahassee
yes, it does only have a regional airport, but there are still 300k people living in and around here.

[attack eagle]

Quite frequent post-Katrina in central and northern MS AL etc.

[Dr. evil]

it just went up from 3.66 to 3.85 havent seen anyone out tho. i wish i would have filled up pre ike

[RobPatt]

...for Gustav we had 5-7 foot storm surge.
The Hard Rock Casino had 2-3 feet of water in the lobby and many streets were flooded, highway 90 along the beach was under water, then sand....

...then Ike came and we had even more flooding... mostly minor again, many roads shut down, debris floating all over, piers, coastal roads all damaged....

BUT.... NO SHORTAGE OF GAS.

We were OUT of GAS for a few days before GUSTAV... when LA folks were evacuating.... but since then, no biggie at all.

Super Unleaded is about 3.93 and regular is about 3.79.

That's the Biloxi, Ocean Springs area of Mississippi.

[ryan roopnarine]

i took this picture at about 7.30 pm last night

chevron to the left, bp and shell to your right. if the camera on the phone wasn't so mediocre, you could see the chevron on the right, a little further down. post apocalyptic.

i'm surprised that you all have gas, rob. i don't see why this is happening here if that is the case.

[RobPatt]

I'm going to Navarre Beach this weekend... so I hope at least the first 50 miles of Florida has gas...

But we'll be using the Hobie Cat sailing around.....

Regardless, the oil industry has us all by the gonads.

Hope your tranny swap works out.... mine's the same one, but after my little trans program issue 6 or 7 years ago, haven't had a spec of trouble w/it....

Cheers man... probably sometime this winter I'm gonna make it over to an FSU game... :-)


i took this picture at about 7.30 pm last night

chevron to the left, bp and shell to your right. if the camera on the phone wasn't so mediocre, you could see the chevron on the right, a little further down. post apocalyptic.

i'm surprised that you all have gas, rob. i don't see why this is happening here if that is the case.

[attack eagle]

no idea ryan...

there is no REASON for it, unless the pipeline leading to your distributor is shut down, and the stations don;t want to pay extra to have it trucked in when they expect prices to fall.

plenty of gas most everywhere, and no shortages in supply.

[ryan roopnarine]

i don't really have any transmission problems rob, per se. i was simply trying to get the transmission to stop hemmoraging transmission fluid out of missing gaskets (and unfortunately for me, a crack). my tearing down of my transmission indicated that the insides of my transmission was perfect. no burned clutch sticking to steels, all of the hard parts measured out fine. there was only a little bit of gouging where all of the thrust washers had disintegrated. i think that says a lot about the strength of the 4l30e that all of the plastic thrust washers were gone, a gasket or two was either not reinstalled by the first rebuilder, but the thing still shifted perfectly. that might have to do with the innordinate amount that i change transmission fluid. it is just that after having the car sit up for 6 months, i'm ready to get it back on the road, and would rather drop a semi-functional unit in there and have to change it out in 50k miles, than having to keep dropping and installing the unit i have in there because of some little detail that i didn't catch. if i can get my old unit out and offline for a while, i can take it apart again and have it dyno tested and sitting in my garage as a known good spare transmission. i almost wished that i had left it alone and strapped or zip tied a piece of west marine oil absorbent pad under it. it would still work fine, i'd just have to top it off on a regular basis.

[RobPatt]

well that's good news. Mine just has a long delay before really being able to go w/o slipping in reverse... but I'm pretty sure that's the gasket failing as has been posted here before... I just dont rev it in reverse. Instead, just put into gear, wait a few seconds until the car is ready to roll... then gently give a little gas... I'm sure if I floored it in reverse I'd blow little pieces of gasket all over the place, have a mess and no reverse.... little idiosyncrasy of an old but good car...



i don't really have any transmission problems rob, per se. i was simply trying to get the transmission to stop hemmoraging transmission fluid out of missing gaskets (and unfortunately for me, a crack). my tearing down of my transmission indicated that the insides of my transmission was perfect. no burned clutch sticking to steels, all of the hard parts measured out fine. there was only a little bit of gouging where all of the thrust washers had disintegrated. i think that says a lot about the strength of the 4l30e that all of the plastic thrust washers were gone, a gasket or two was either not reinstalled by the first rebuilder, but the thing still shifted perfectly. that might have to do with the innordinate amount that i change transmission fluid. it is just that after having the car sit up for 6 months, i'm ready to get it back on the road, and would rather drop a semi-functional unit in there and have to change it out in 50k miles, than having to keep dropping and installing the unit i have in there because of some little detail that i didn't catch. if i can get my old unit out and offline for a while, i can take it apart again and have it dyno tested and sitting in my garage as a known good spare transmission. i almost wished that i had left it alone and strapped or zip tied a piece of west marine oil absorbent pad under it. it would still work fine, i'd just have to top it off on a regular basis.